Buster Brown — 1904-01-31

Nine panels follow young Buster Brown as he spots a burglar, drapes himself in a bedsheet ghost costume to frighten the intruder, and watches his dog Tige chase the man down the stairs until police arrive. Outcault draws the domestic interior with confident cross-hatching, and the ghost gag—Buster's wide painted mouth on the sheet—lands with crisp slapstick timing. Speech balloons carry Buster's recurring 'Resolved!' moral monologue, here about courage over cowardice. Outcault had already invented the modern Sunday comic page with *The Yellow Kid* in 1896; *Buster Brown*, launched in the *New York Herald* in 1902, refined the formula: a named recurring character, consistent panel borders, and integrated dialogue balloons that later writers and artists would treat as simply how comics work.