Mutt and Jeff — 1910-01-18

"Mutt and Little Jeff in England — The Light's Out Now" by Bud Fisher runs six panels: the lanky Mutt and diminutive Jeff tour a castle, consult a guidebook, admire William the Conqueror's 1,000-year-old bed and its perpetually burning lamp — then Jeff blows it out. The final panel marks the date A.D. 1000, puncturing the solemn monument with slapstick. Fisher's loose, energetic line and stacked speech balloons carry the timing; the height contrast between characters does the rest. Launched in the *San Francisco Chronicle* in 1907, *Mutt and Jeff* was among the first strips built around a fixed cast and continuous daily publication — habits that would define the comic book form when newspaper pages were later collected and reprinted as stand-alone pamphlets.