The Newlyweds by George McManus

McManus's *The Newlyweds* ran as a daily and Sunday strip in American newspapers from 1904 onward, following the domestic mishaps of a young married couple. This Sunday page demonstrates the format that defined early newspaper comics: six panels arranged in three rows, each advancing a single gag through sequential art. McManus uses speech balloons, expressive body language, and clear panel demarcation—visual conventions becoming standardized as comics evolved from isolated gags into serialized narratives. The strip's popularity helped establish the Sunday comics page as a newspaper fixture and proved that domestic comedy, rendered through drawing and dialogue, could sustain reader interest across hundreds of installments. McManus's clean linework and efficient staging influenced the visual language that would define the emerging comic book medium.