George Herriman, "Hard Work," 1907

A single-panel editorial cartoon signed by George Herriman — years before *Krazy Kat* made him immortal. A working man in a suit grips a pickaxe and surveys a massive stone wall blocking a tunnel labeled Opportunity; the rubble at his feet and the displaced blocks behind him are all tagged Hard Work. The caption reads: *Many of Us Will Have to Get at It — It Will Do Us Good.* The draftsmanship is confident and architectural, the allegory blunt. Herriman was already shaping the visual language — confident linework, expressive silhouette, compressed moral punch — that Sunday newspaper artists were forging into what would eventually become the comic book medium itself.