Smitty — Darn Clever, This Chinese

A daily newspaper strip following Smitty, an office boy whose schemes and mishaps drive the gags. Here, a masquerade party costume triggers confusion as Smitty searches for "the big shot's" parked car. The strip uses sequential panels with speech balloons—visual conventions that newspaper comics standardized in the early 20th century. Recurring characters, sight gags, and rapid dialogue pacing were hallmarks of the daily strip format that directly influenced comic book storytelling. Artist Walter Berndt developed Smitty into one of the era's widely syndicated properties, appearing across hundreds of papers and establishing the visual grammar and comedic timing that became foundational to American comics.