Mutt and Jeff — 1909-11-17

Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff* strip shows the lanky Mutt declaring himself a bookmaker, packing his trunk, and setting up shop outside a racetrack door while the diminutive Jeff watches. Bettors press tickets and cash on him; the final panel delivers a tote sheet — 'Mutt's Sheet Today' — listing horses, odds, and a total of $1,290. Fisher drew the strip daily from 1907, making it among the first American comics built around returning characters in continuous, dated installments. That regularity — same faces, same rhythm, panel to panel — taught readers how to follow sequential art, cementing the grammar of speech balloons, timing, and visual punchlines that newspaper strips handed wholesale to the comic-book format born three decades later.