Mutt and Jeff — 1908-09-13

Eight panels follow the lanky, top-hatted Mutt through a New York millinery shop after a winning streak at the track. He tries on hats named the "Princess Chic," the "Dr. Cook" (complete with eye-holes), and finally the "Miss Alert" — a towering, feathered confection he declares "the real noise" before bolting to pay $48. Fisher's draftsmanship is loose and kinetic: exaggerated limbs, expressive lean, speech balloons integrated tightly into the action. Launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* was among the first strips to use a consistent cast across daily installments, pioneering the serialized newspaper comic — the direct ancestor of the comic book format that would codify its visual language over the following decades.