Billy Bounce

W.W. Denslow's Billy Bounce follows two boys and a mischievous March Hare who investigate the source of spring weather. The strip employs sequential panels with speech balloons and recurring characters—formal innovations that defined early newspaper comics. Denslow, known for illustrating The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, uses slapstick and visual gags to propel narrative across numbered panels. Here, the Hare operates a mechanical weather machine, turning cranks to summon storms and blizzards. The boys are swept away by wind, landing far from home. The strip's layout—panel progression, character consistency, and hybrid text-image storytelling—established visual conventions that newspapers would standardize throughout the 1900s.