Mutt and Jeff — 1909-10-05

Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff* ran as a daily strip from 1907—making it among the first true recurring daily comic strips in American newspapers—before expanding to Sunday pages. Here, the lanky schemer Mutt and his short sidekick Jeff impersonate a German admiral and aide during New York's Hudson-Fulton Celebration, crashing a society dinner before the con collapses in a hail of thrown crockery. Fisher's six-panel layout demonstrates the maturing grammar of the form: consistent character silhouettes that read instantly, speech balloons driving plot, and a timed punchline built across sequential beats. Strips like this one were collected into book form almost immediately, directly prefiguring the comic book format.