Buster Brown

Richard Outcault's Buster Brown ran in the *New York Herald* beginning in 1902, featuring a mischievous, sailor-suited boy, his long-suffering dog Tige, and his moral resolutions—always broken. This Sunday page, nine panels plus header, follows Buster smuggling Tige into school: the dog hides in a trunk, disrupts the classroom, is appointed 'monitor,' and finally triggers pandemonium requiring the police. Outcault draws with confident cross-hatching, fluid speech balloons integrated into the action, and a clear panel-to-panel causality that defines the Sunday page format. The strip's recurring cast, consistent visual identity, and weekly moral-then-chaos structure made it a template for American comic strips—and Buster's licensed image, plastered on shoes and merchandise, pioneered character branding still universal today.