Buster Brown

Richard Outcault's *Buster Brown* ran in nine panels here, following the mischievous boy and his bull terrier Tige as they pursue a jar of jam, recruit a clown and a trained bear into a height-measuring scheme, and end with Buster stuck atop the measuring rod, dripping jam while the bear stands tallest. Outcault signs the strip twice—once in each decorative header vignette—a trademark flourish. The Sunday page closes with Buster's deadpan moral 'Resolved,' printed in a text panel. Outcault had already changed comics history with *The Yellow Kid* (1895); *Buster Brown* (launched 1902) refined the formula: a recurring cast, consistent page architecture, speech balloons integral to the drawing, and the child-plus-animal duo that would define American strips for decades. These Sunday pages are the direct ancestors of the comic book format.