Mr. Broad of Wall Street

This four-panel daily strip follows Mr. Broad, a Wall Street financier, as he rushes through his morning before heading to the office. The narrative unfolds left to right: Broad leaves the park in haste, encounters a beggar and throws food from his elevators, deflects the beggar's plea for stock tips, and concludes with smug indifference to the man's plight. The strip uses sequential panels, speech balloons, and visual gags—Broad's physical comedy and facial expressions—to deliver its satirical punch about wealth and class. Newspaper strips like this one formed the direct precursor to comic books, establishing the visual language of panel layout, dialogue integration, and character-driven humor that would define the medium.