Mutt and Jeff — Six-Day Race

Bud Fisher's *Mutt and Jeff* ran as a daily strip from 1907, making it among the first American comics built around a fixed cast of recurring characters — the lanky schemer Mutt and his tiny, top-hatted companion Jeff. In these eight panels, the pair enter New York's grueling six-day bicycle race: Mutt explains the relay system to a bewildered Jeff, Jeff collapses after a single lap while Mutt rides on through his 23rd straight hour, and a fresh 'sprint guy' appears to finish them off. Fisher's brushwork is loose and kinetic, his speech balloons doing real narrative work. Strips like this — syndicated, serialized, character-driven — are the direct ancestors of the comic book format.