Toonerville Folks — The Washington Times, February 20, 1921

This page from The Washington Times of February 20, 1921 places Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Folks within the crowded commercial world of the Sunday newspaper — the literal cradle of the American comic book. Fox's strip, syndicated nationally from 1908, centered on a rattletrap trolley and the eccentric small-town passengers who rode it; the Skipper, a gnarly motorman, became one of early comics' most recognizable recurring figures. The loose, economical ink line and tight character silhouettes show how Fox — like McManus, Herriman, and Dirks before him — was codifying the visual grammar of panels, timing, and personality that artists would carry directly into the first comic-book anthologies of the 1930s.