Mr. Block was a cartoon written and drawn by Ernest Riebe first printed in 1913 to publicize the Industrial Workers of the World. Each comic consists of six frames, and explicitly depicts a lesson Mr. Block learns as an average worker in an industrial society. The characterizations of "the enemy" are simple and perhaps don't speak as clearly to our current spectacular social framework as they did to the worker in 1913, but though Mr. Block was your average dupe, the I.W.W. was not your average union. The encounters Mr. Block has with bosses, banks, reformist christians, and scabs have their counterparts in modern society as well. It is with that in mind that we present the original series of Reibe's comics, one frame at a time.
