Mutt and Jeff — 1909-10-09

Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff* began in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, making it among the first daily comic strips with a fixed cast of recurring characters — a structural innovation that pushed newspaper comics toward genuine serialized storytelling. This strip finds the lanky, hapless Mutt enlisting in the U.S. Navy after his racetrack horse is scratched, while the tiny Jeff creates chaos aboard, getting handcuffed by a naval officer. Fisher's six tight panels demonstrate the visual grammar already fully formed: speech balloons anchored to speakers, sequential action, and a punchline landing in the final frame. Fisher would soon become one of the highest-paid cartoonists in America, and *Mutt and Jeff* ran continuously until 1983.