Sunday Comic Section — St. Louis Republic

This Sunday newspaper page from 1901 showcases early sequential art in the medium's formative years. The large color cartoon at left uses multiple panels with clear narrative progression and dialogue balloons to tell a comedic story. The style—exaggerated figures, slapstick scenarios, heavy ink lines—reflects the visual vocabulary emerging from newspaper comics of the 1890s–1900s. Period illustrations here include ethnic caricature typical of the era's popular entertainment. Such Sunday supplement comics, printed in color and distributed nationally, established the framework for modern comic books: recurring characters, panel sequencing, speech balloons, and visual gags that would dominate sequential art for generations.