Mutt and Jeff — 1908-09-24

'Bud' Fisher's *Mutt in New York — He's Desperate Now* traces the broke, horse-obsessed Mutt through eight panels: he cadges coffee on two bits, overhears track talk, pockets a bird from its cage as a desperate scheme, hauls it to a bird store, and parlays four dollars onto a horse named Spooner. Fisher's loose, angular line and brisk speech balloons keep the gag machine running at a pure transactional clip. Originally launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* was among the first strips to run daily, establishing the recurring-character serial as a commercial model. Its panel-by-panel visual rhythm — truncated backgrounds, expressive silhouettes, punchy caption placement — helped codify the grammar that newspaper comics handed directly to the first comic books two decades later.