ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

It's No Use! Absolutely No Use!

· January 18, 1914

It's No Use! Absolutely No Use!
A Sunday comic strip from the Omaha Daily Bee depicting a hooligan character's repeated attempts at mischief, thwarted at every turn. The twelve-panel sequence uses sequential art conventions—distinct rectangular panels, speech balloons, and visual gags—that defined early newspaper comics. The protagonist's circular journey from scheme to failure, played across multiple frames, demonstrates how Sunday pages expanded the comic form beyond single-panel jokes. By 1914, newspaper comic sections had become standard features, employing artists to develop recurring characters and visual storytelling techniques that would directly influence the emerging comic book format.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain