Their Only Child

A Sunday newspaper comic strip depicting a family's chaotic attempt to have their child photographed for a portrait. The strip employs sequential panels with speech balloons to narrate the escalating disruptions—a cat, a dog, a broken camera, and the child's persistent misbehavior—that thwart the photographer's efforts. The artwork demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early comic strips: numbered panels establishing scene progression, varied panel sizes for comedic emphasis, and expressive line work conveying physical comedy. By 1913, such strips had become standard features in Sunday newspapers, establishing the visual grammar—layout, dialogue placement, character consistency—that would directly influence the emerging comic book format.