Smitty

This newspaper strip follows Smitty, an office boy navigating the corporate workplace through pranks and observations. The comic employs the standard visual language of early comics: rectangular panels arranged in rows, speech balloons capturing rapid dialogue, and expressive character drawings that convey action and emotion at a glance. Smitty's humor pivots on workplace dynamics and physical comedy—here, the boss's reactions to Smitty's antics about his hairstyle and office behavior. Published in daily and Sunday formats, strips like *Smitty* established the recurring character and episodic narrative structure that became foundational to comic books. The format itself—sequential panels with integrated text—created a visual vocabulary that cartoonists had been refining since the 1890s and that would define the medium for generations.