Petey Dink: This Enlisting Business Has Its Bumps

G. A. Voight's *Petey Dink* strips appeared in newspapers as single-panel and multi-panel gags, establishing recurring character humor in the dailies. This strip demonstrates the visual conventions that shaped early comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, exaggerated character expressions, and rapid-fire punchlines. The narrative follows Petey through a military recruiting office, using slapstick and dialogue to build comedy across four frames. By the 1910s, newspaper comic strips had become a laboratory for visual storytelling—the direct precursor to comic books. Artists like Voight refined panel layout, character design, and timing, creating the grammar that cartoonists still use today.