Buster Brown

Richard Outcault's Buster Brown ran in the New York Herald beginning in 1902, starring a mischievous blond boy in a Lord Fauntleroy suit, his long-suffering dog Tige, and his little sister Mary Jane. This Sunday page follows Buster and Tige playing hooky from a visit to Aunt Laurie by hiding in a coal wagon, eating lunch under the coal chute, impersonating the sleeping coalman, and finally fleeing a policeman — closing with Buster's signature signed moral ('Resolved') that cheerfully subverts the lesson. Outcault, who had already invented the Yellow Kid, perfected here the locked panel grid, integrated speech balloons, and recurring cast that would define American comic strips and, within decades, the comic book itself.