The Bold Bear and the Bad Pirate—A Simple Tale

This sixteen-panel strip by Clare Briggs tells a slapstick narrative entirely through sequential drawings, with minimal text. A stick-figured bear and pirate engage in physical comedy—jumping, falling, kicking—across a grid of equal-sized panels that guide the reader's eye left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Briggs employs exaggerated poses and repeating character silhouettes to convey motion and emotion. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' reliance on visual gags and the emerging panel-based grammar that would define the medium. Published in the Sunday supplements that preceded the comic book format, such strips trained readers in a new visual language while entertaining millions.