The Newlyweds—Their Baby

George McManus's The Newlyweds appeared in Sunday newspaper supplements, following a young married couple and their infant through domestic chaos. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early comics: multiple panels arranged in a grid, speech balloons advancing narrative and gags simultaneously, and a recurring cast of characters. McManus's clean linework and clear panel progression made complex visual storytelling legible to mass audiences. The domestic sitcom format—husband and wife managing household mishaps with a baby—became a template for newspaper comics. By the 1910s, such Sunday strips and their daily counterparts had established the medium's grammar: sequential panels, expressive figuration, and humor deriving from character interaction and visual misadventure rather than single jokes.