Buster Brown on the Strand

R. F. Outcault's Buster Brown ran in the *New York Herald* from 1902, making it one of the earliest recurring-character Sunday pages — the direct ancestor of the comic book. This full-page strip follows the mischievous boy and his dog Tige through London, opening with a letter-panel to "Miss Mary Jane" and moving into Trafalgar Square, where Buster encounters British counterparts — "Tom Brown of Eaton," "Jimmy Brown of Anywhere" — in a gag about national identity. The lower half erupts into a chaotic advertising parody: a horse-drawn omnibus plastered with fictitious royal-appointment brands. Outcault pioneered the integrated speech balloon and the recurring cast, tools every cartoonist since has inherited.