Buster Brown

Richard F. Outcault's Buster Brown ran in the *New York Herald* beginning 1902, making it one of the earliest recurring-character Sunday pages — the direct ancestor of the comic book. This full-page strip follows the mischievous, round-collared boy and his bulldog Tige through twelve numbered panels: a tramp is cleaned up, shaved, fitted with Pa's clothes, and passed off as a gentleman caller, ending with Buster's trademark "Resolved" moral monologue. Outcault drew speech balloons, sequential panel grids, and a consistent cast — visual conventions he had pioneered with *The Yellow Kid* in 1895. The closing prose panel, written in Buster's voice, was itself a recurring structural joke: pious lesson, impish contradiction.