Buster Brown — 1904-05-29

Nine panels follow young Buster Brown as he smuggles a live lobster from a fish shop into his sleeping father's bed. Outcault builds the gag with precise comic timing: Buster's dog Tige warns him off; the lobster, tangled in fly-paper, triggers a chaotic bedroom brawl; Pa emerges shredded and furious. Outcault's clean pen line, theatrical staging, and fluid use of speech balloons and a closing "Resolved" moral box defined the Sunday-page format. Buster Brown debuted in the *New York Herald* in 1902, making Outcault—already the father of the Yellow Kid—the pivotal figure in establishing the recurring-character color Sunday strip, the direct ancestor of the comic book.