From the exhibition
Salesman Sam
· February 21, 1928
A daily strip following the misadventures of Sam, a fast-talking salesman navigating urban life and hotel dealings. This four-panel sequence showcases the strip's rapid-fire gag structure and visual slapstick: Sam scrambles through cascading mishaps as a bellhop, each panel built on escalating physical comedy and sight gags. The strip exemplifies the newspaper comic strip's core innovation—sequential narrative told through uniform panels, expressive character poses, and dialogue balloons. Salesman Sam ran for decades in American dailies, helping establish the salesman-as-protagonist archetype and demonstrating how recurring characters could drive consistent reader engagement across hundreds of installments.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain
