Mutt and Jeff — 1908-09-03

"With Mutt in New York — He's Certainly a Great Digger" runs six panels: the lanky, top-hatted Mutt, broke after a horse-racing loss, decides to die by swallowing a gold coin rather than wait for a doctor. The doctor fishes it out with forceps — then charges ten dollars for the procedure. Final panel: Mutt, stunned, hands over the money. Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff*, launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, was among the first comic strips built around a single recurring cast and a daily continuity format. Its punch-line structure, expressive silhouette figures, and consistent speech-balloon grammar directly shaped the visual conventions that newspaper syndicates — and eventually comic books — would standardize worldwide.