Buster Brown — 1905-08-13

Twelve panels follow Buster and his bull terrier Tige onto a farm to visit sheep. The gag escalates neatly: calling the flock triggers a stampede, Buster clings to Tige in terror, the sheep overrun the farmhouse, and the strip closes with Buster's mock-philosophical 'Resolved' letter comparing sheep-following animals to society conformists — a recurring device Outcault used to give the strip a satirical sting. The draftsmanship is confident, sheep rendered in convincing masses, architecture solid and specific. Richard Felton Outcault had already invented the modern comic strip with *The Yellow Kid* (1895); *Buster Brown*, launched 1902, refined the formula — consistent characters, speech balloons integrated into art, Sunday-page sequencing — that syndicates and, eventually, comic book compilers would inherit wholesale.