Smitty — Clothes Make the Man

This strip follows Smitty, a young office boy navigating urban life and petty schemes. The narrative arc spans four panels: Smitty returns home without new clothes, claims his boss won't let him leave early to shop, borrows an oversized suit from a neighbor, and arrives at a street corner hawking hot patootie. The progression relies on visual gags—ill-fitting garments and comedic timing—and sequential storytelling, hallmarks of the newspaper comic strip form that emerged from the 1890s onward. Artists working in this era established the visual vocabulary: bordered panels, speech balloons, expressive line work, and recurring characters that anchored daily readership. Smitty exemplifies how the Sunday and daily strip functioned as both entertainment and the direct precursor to the comic book format.