Smitty—Wild Animals

A Sunday page from *Smitty*, the newspaper strip that followed a young office boy and his circle through urban and rural adventures. This four-panel strip demonstrates the visual conventions established in early comics: sequential narrative across panels, speech balloons anchoring dialogue, and recurring characters placed in varied situations. The strip's gag structure—the boss on a diet who must resist temptation—relies on reader familiarity with established personalities. Such strips appeared in Sunday comics sections nationwide, reaching millions of readers and establishing the visual language that would define comic books: panel borders, expressive linework, and the coordination of image and text to advance a story.