Same Old Coon

This mid-19th-century print depicts a man's head grafted onto a black animal's body—a visual pun using anthropomorphism and satirical juxtaposition. Though predating the newspaper comic by decades, such illustrated humor established visual conventions—exaggerated features, anthropomorphism, and satirical juxtaposition—that comic artists would later formalize. The image reveals how print media shaped public discourse through image and text combined, laying groundwork for the visual language comics would inherit and transform.