Little Alice Helps Keep the Duchess' Party Cool

This Sunday comic strip from the Chicago Tribune demonstrates the visual vocabulary emerging in early 1900s newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, recurring characters, and escalating physical comedy. The strip follows a simple premise—keeping guests cool during a sweltering party—through six panels of increasingly chaotic action. Alice's character appears modeled on Lewis Carroll's famous heroine, part of a broader trend of adapting literary figures for the new medium. The artist employs panel borders, varied compositions, and clear sight lines to guide readers through the narrative. By the early 1900s, Sunday newspaper supplements had become laboratories for visual storytelling, developing the grammar and conventions that would define American comics for decades.