Victoria Daily Times, May 20, 1904

This Victoria newspaper front page exemplifies the era when serialized comic strips began appearing in dailies alongside news and advertising. While no formal comic strip is visible here, the page demonstrates the visual layout conventions that would shape early comic book design: dense text columns, illustrated advertisements, and the integration of drawings with typography. Early 1900s newspapers served as the primary venue for sequential narrative art, featuring recurring characters and visual gags that established the medium's foundational grammar—panel layouts, speech integration, and character consistency. These newspaper pages were the direct precursors to the comic books that emerged in the 1930s, making daily and Sunday editions the true birthplace of American comics.