Happy Hooligan — 1901-09-15

Six panels follow Happy Hooligan — the tin-canned tramp whose good intentions perpetually backfire — as he pounds on a barn door, is mistaken for a burglar by a suspicious farmer, tumbles inside onto a pair of small figures, gets chased by an angry mule, and is marched off to justice, mule in tow. Opper's draftsmanship is loose and kinetic: figures careen into each other, speech balloons crowd the action, and the donkey earns as many sight gags as the humans. Opper had refined this strip for Hearst's papers since 1900, and its consistent cast, sequential panel logic, and balloon-driven comedy were precisely the raw material that anthology publishers would soon bind into the first true comic books.