Krazy Kat — The Washington Times, January 5, 1919

This Sunday comics page from The Washington Times opens with George Herriman's Krazy Kat occupying its habitual left-column strip — the Cat and Ignatz Mouse exchanging their elliptical, punning dialogue in Herriman's scratchy, expressive line. Sharing the page are The Dingbat Family, Abie the Agent (Harry Hershfield's Jewish-immigrant protagonist, whose name and visual type reflect the broad ethnic caricature accepted as comedic shorthand in 1919), Jerry on the Job, Polly and Her Pals, and Us Boys. The page is a living specimen of the Sunday newspaper supplement — the direct ancestor of the comic book. These recurring characters, speech balloons integrated into image, and panel-to-panel action sequences were the visual grammar that artists like Herriman were simultaneously inventing and perfecting.