Buster Brown — 1904-06-19

Nine panels follow the incorrigible Buster Brown as his mother sends him to the cobbler to have her shoe repaired. The cobbler — pipe clamped in teeth, tools scattered — proves easily provoked, and the visit escalates through thrown objects, a toppled barrel, and general mayhem before Buster escapes. Outcault closes with his signature device: Buster's written "Resolution," a mock-moral confession delivered straight to the reader. The draftsmanship is crisp pen-and-ink, each panel firmly bordered, speech balloons nested tightly into the action. Outcault had already invented the modern comic strip with *The Yellow Kid* (1895); Buster Brown, launched in 1902 in the *New York Herald*, refined the form — recurring cast, consistent visual characterization, and the resolution gag as structural punchline — elements every subsequent Sunday page would inherit.