Mutt and Jeff — 1908-08-24

Eight horizontal panels follow lanky Mutt through a New York sidewalk encounter: a woman asks him to hold her small dog while she enters a dry-goods store, but the dog bites and chases him through the street, sending his hat flying. Mutt escapes by shinning up a telegraph pole, clings there all night, then charges the woman twenty-five cents for the ordeal. Bud Fisher's linework is crisp and kinetic — exaggerated limbs, speed-blur strokes, speech balloons driving every beat. Launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* was among the first strips built around a single recurring cast across consecutive daily installments, directly prefiguring the serialized comic book format that would crystallize three decades later.