From the exhibition
The Newlyweds
· 1912

*The Newlyweds* appeared in Sunday newspaper comics sections as a domestic comedy strip centered on a young married couple navigating household life. The strip employs the visual grammar that became standard in comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, recurring characters in recognizable settings, and sight gags built from exaggerated physical action. George McManus, the artist, uses varied panel layouts and clear line work to guide readers through each joke's timing. Strips like this were the primary format for comic narratives in the early twentieth century, appearing in major newspapers before comic books as we know them existed. These Sunday pages and their daily companions trained audiences in reading visual sequences and established the conventions—panel borders, lettering styles, character consistency—that would define the medium for generations.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain