The Newlyweds

McManus's Newlyweds follows a young couple and their infant through domestic comedy. Here, Mr. Newlywed attempts to keep the baby quiet while his wife leaves for an afternoon outing—a premise that unravels across six panels as the child grows louder and more destructive. The strip employs the standard visual vocabulary of early newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, recurring characters, and sight gags built on exaggeration. First appearing in 1904, The Newlyweds became a Sunday fixture and helped establish the domestic sitcom as a staple format. McManus's clean line work and clear staging made complex physical comedy readable at small reproduction sizes, influencing how comic strips would be drawn for decades.