Buster Brown

Buster Brown & His Valentine follows the mischievous Buster and his dog Tige as Buster mails anonymous insulting valentines to the neighborhood watchman, baker, milkman, and grocer — figures introduced across a banner of caricature portraits at the strip's top. The gag turns on him: the men chase him through a sequence of nine panels before his father administers punishment. The strip closes with Buster's characteristic written "Resolved" moral, here condemning cruel valentines. Richard Outcault's Sunday page, syndicated in the *New York Herald*, refined the full-page format his earlier *Yellow Kid* had pioneered — recurring cast, numbered panels, integrated speech balloons, and the moral-coda device that gave readers a character, not just a joke.