ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Mutt and Jeff — "With Mutt in New York"

· c. 1909–1912, Harry Conway 'Bud' Fisher

Mutt and Jeff — "With Mutt in New York"
Six panels follow the lanky, top-hatted Mutt, who has surrendered his clothes to feed his dog and now shivers wrapped in a blanket. A small terrier trots beside him; passersby recoil as he tries to pet them. The strip escalates to a slapstick wind gag that leaves Mutt tumbling, and closes with a newspaper-extra panel advertising Mutt and Jeff in a six-day bike race. Fisher's linework is economical and kinetic — figures rendered in confident brushstrokes, speech balloons integrated naturally into the action. Launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* was among the first daily strips with a fixed cast and continuous storyline, helping establish the recurring-character serial as the dominant form that would eventually migrate from newsprint into the comic book format itself.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain