Mutt and Jeff — 1909-12-06

Six panels track the tall, mustachioed Mutt and his small bowler-hatted companion Jeff through a Thanksgiving caper: Mutt pockets his watch money, intending to buy and cook a turkey, then squanders the $2.50 at a sidewalk craps game—losing on the third roll—before the pair stands empty-handed as dinner burns at home. Fisher draws in a loose, economical ink line with expressive silhouettes and tightly interlocked speech balloons that drive the gag forward without captions. *Mutt and Jeff*, launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, was among the first strips built on a single recurring cast and a daily installment schedule—habits that directly shaped the comic book's eventual format and taught readers to follow characters across time.