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What kinds of stories appeared in early German woodcut picture strips?

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King, Frank: Gasoline Alley — comic strip Thirteen panels from the comic strip *Gasoline Alley* by Frank King, 1921. It shows Walt Wallet feeding and then chasing the turkey that he and baby Skeezix have raised for Thanksgiving dinner.

Early German woodcut picture strips, which emerged as a mass medium following the invention of printing, primarily focused on two overarching themes: political morality and private morality.1

Surviving strips from before 1550 often depicted:
* Religious and Miraculous Subjects: These included the lives of saints—frequently organized in a compartmentalized layout inspired by medieval altarpieces—and accounts of contemporary miracles.1
* Social and Moral Commentary: Early works addressed the mockery of worldly love and included politically charged accusations against the Jewish population.1
* Criminal Narratives: Strips concerning private morality often recounted atrocious murders and their subsequent public punishments.1
* Satire: By the 17th century, German artists also specialized in satirical works that exposed the perceived tyranny of shrewish wives and proposed violent remedies for such domestic issues.1

Following the Reformation, these strips increasingly incorporated propagandistic and patriotic themes based on contemporary political events and religious conflicts.1