Buster Brown

Richard Outcault's *Buster Brown* ran in the New York Herald beginning 1902, following Outcault's earlier *Yellow Kid* — arguably the first recurring newspaper comic character. This Sunday page shows Buster and his bull terrier Tige rigging a rack of seltzer bottles as a makeshift carillon, performing for a neighbor Mr. Soft, whose own bell-playing ends in chaotic percussion and a soaking. Nine panels carry the gag from setup to explosion to Buster's closing moral — the 'Resolved' box that was the strip's signature. Outcault's clean line, expressive figures, and disciplined panel grid exemplify the visual grammar Sunday pages were codifying: contained action, speech balloons anchored to speakers, and a cliffhanger rhythm that the comic book would inherit wholesale two decades later.