Otto Watt

By Barrie Payne, *Otto Watt* follows a hapless domestic protagonist through domestic mishaps and marital friction. This daily strip exemplifies the visual conventions newspaper comics had codified by the 1920s: sequential panels with speech balloons advancing a linear narrative, exaggerated figure drawing for comic effect, and a recurring everyman character navigating ordinary life. The strip's humor derives from physical comedy and marital banter—Otto's wife berates him for broken household items and his general incompetence. Such strips populated American newspapers alongside adventure serials and funny animals, establishing the comic strip as a mass medium that preceded and directly influenced the comic book form.