Salesman Sam

Salesman Sam followed the daily adventures of an aggressive door-to-door peddler hawking cut flowers, seeds, and other wares to irritated customers. Created in the 1920s, the strip exemplified the energetic comic style of the newspaper funny pages, using multiple panels to build gags through sequence and reaction. The character's rapid-fire sales pitches and physical comedy drove the narrative forward across each strip. Salesman Sam belonged to a generation of comics born directly in newspapers rather than adapted from other media—strips that established the visual and narrative conventions later inherited by the comic book form.