Happy Hooligan — 1901-06-30

Six panels follow Happy Hooligan — the good-natured tramp with a tin-can hat — as he hauls a barrel of firecrackers uptown for some kids on the Fourth of July. A cop stops him in panel 3, disbelieves his explanation in panel 4, clubs him in panel 5, and drags him before a judge in panel 6. Opper's brushwork is confident and loose; his speech balloons carry thick dialect lettering, and the slapstick escalates panel-by-panel with clockwork precision. Launched in 1900 in Hearst's *New York American*, *Happy Hooligan* ran until 1932, helping to fix the recurring-character Sunday page as the dominant format — the same format that, collected into newsprint giveaways and then stapled pamphlets, produced the comic book itself.