The Newlyweds—Their Baby

George McManus's The Newlyweds follows a young couple navigating domestic chaos with their infant. This Sunday strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' visual language: multiple panels in grid formation, speech balloons advancing narrative, recurring characters building reader familiarity. The gags mine physical comedy—spilled objects, exasperated expressions, the baby's disruptions—from the daily friction of housekeeping. McManus's clean linework and spatial clarity influenced generations of strip artists. By 1911, Sunday comic pages had become the primary incubator for sequential art innovation, establishing formal conventions (panel borders, caption placement, visual timing) that would define the medium for decades. Newspapers syndicated these strips nationally, making comics mass entertainment before they appeared in dedicated comic books.