Sunday Comic Section

This 1903 Sunday newspaper page from the St. Louis Republic displays the medium that birthed American comics: the illustrated newspaper supplement. The page combines department store advertising with comic strips and illustrated features—the economic model that sustained early comic art. The layout shows recurring characters, sequential panels, and speech balloons that formed the visual language newspapers pioneered in the 1890s and early 1900s. By this period, Sunday comic sections had become major circulation drivers for metropolitan papers, establishing the formal conventions—panel borders, character continuity, sight gags—that would define comics for decades. Artists working in newspapers essentially invented the grammar of sequential art that later defined the medium itself.