Salesman Sam

A Sunday strip by Small following Sam, a quick-witted traveling salesman navigating small-town commerce and social mishaps. The narrative unfolds across multiple panels with distinct scenes—Sam pitching goods, locals reacting skeptically, and complications multiplying. The strip employs the visual conventions now standard in comics: sequential panels advancing time, speech balloons revealing character voice, and recurring figures creating continuity. Salesman Sam ran in newspapers nationwide, part of the Sunday funny pages that established the commercial infrastructure and visual language of sequential art. The strip's episodic gags and character-driven humor made it a prototype for the comic strip format that would later transition into comic books.