Happy Hooligan — 1901-05-19

Six panels follow Happy Hooligan — the tin-canned tramp in polka dots — attempting courtship in a park. Spotting a woman on a bench, he approaches with gallantry, speaks a few words, and is immediately repelled; a policeman intervenes, kicks him flat, and hauls him off while the woman explains to the officer that Happy was only waving. The gag closes with Happy dragged away promising to return in ten minutes. Opper's brushwork is loose and kinetic, his speech balloons phonetically spelling immigrant dialect. Launched in Hearst papers around 1900, *Happy Hooligan* ran for three decades, its recurring misfit protagonist and panel-by-panel sequential storytelling directly shaping the anthology reprint comics — *Famous Funnies* and beyond — that would become the comic book.