Mutt and Jeff — 1908-08-31

Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff* is among the earliest American daily comic strips to feature a recurring cast and continuous storyline across panels. This strip follows the tall, scheming Mutt and his shorter companion Jeff through a horse-racing grift: Mutt hatches a plan to dose a horse called Moquette, persuades a reluctant Jeff to go along, and the scheme collapses spectacularly — ending in the familiar cry of ruin. Fisher's draftsmanship is loose and energetic; speech balloons carry the comedic load, and panel-to-panel continuity drives the joke. First published in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* pioneered the vertical-strip format and the paired-character dynamic that would define newspaper comics — and, within decades, the comic book — for generations.