Isn't It Just Like a Woman?

C.L. Sherman's comic strip demonstrates the visual conventions that shaped early newspaper comics. The six-panel layout uses sequential art to build a domestic gag: a woman abandons lunch before the matinee, refuses soda and tea to maintain her diet, declines dinner invitations—only to raid the refrigerator at midnight. Speech balloons carry dialogue and interior monologue across each panel, while exaggerated figure drawing conveys character through gesture and expression. The recurring female protagonist, shown in different poses and contexts, became a staple of Sunday and daily newspaper strips. Sherman's work exemplifies how artists working in newspapers during this era established the visual grammar—panel borders, word balloons, sequential narrative—that would become foundational to comic books.