Mutt and Jeff

This strip runs eight panels across a broadsheet page, presenting a mock-historical pageant: "Atty. Beany" producing caricatured portraits of Mutt's ancestors — a Pilgrim swindler, a Boston Tea Party rascal, a Civil War-era con man — to prove that roguery runs in the family. Each panel pairs a densely hand-lettered caption block with an exaggerated figure drawing, the gags building through accumulation rather than a single punchline. Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff*, launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, was among the first strips to use a fixed cast in continuous daily sequences — a structural innovation that directly shaped the comic book's episodic form. Fisher's confident linework and use of comparative panel rhythm became foundational vocabulary for the medium.