When the Cats Away the Mice Will Play

This Sunday comic strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary emerging in early-1900s newspaper humor: multiple panels arranged to show sequential action, speech balloons advancing narrative, and a recurring cast of anthropomorphic characters. The artist uses dense cross-hatching and detailed line work typical of the era. The strip's title references a familiar proverb, with mice seizing an opportunity for mischief in a kitchen setting. Published in the Chicago Tribune, this type of Sunday color comics was among the first serialized sequential art to reach mass American audiences, establishing conventions—panel borders, character consistency, visual gags—that would define the medium.