Buster Brown — 1904-12-11

R. F. Outcault's *Buster Brown* ran as a full-page Sunday color strip beginning in 1902, and this London hotel episode shows his formula at full speed: nine numbered panels tracking a prank from setup to consequence. Buster trips a maid carrying a breakfast tray, crockery flies, the proprietor erupts, and Buster escapes punishment when his mother intercedes — ending with his dog Tige and a preachy "Resolved!" moral that Outcault always played for irony. The brushwork is assured, crowd chaos rendered through overlapping figures and flying dishes. Outcault had already invented the modern speech balloon with *The Yellow Kid* (1895); here his panel-to-panel staging and recurring cast cement conventions every subsequent cartoonist would inherit.