Smitty—Using His Head

This four-panel strip follows Smitty, a mischievous child character, as he attempts to con a woman out of money by fabricating a story about a blonde woman with curly hair. The scheme backfires when the woman mistakes Smitty's companion for the supposedly wealthy woman, leading to physical comedy. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comic conventions: recurring child protagonists, slapstick humor, sequential panel layout, and speech balloons conveying dialogue and thought. Smitty strips like this appeared daily in newspapers during the 1920s–30s, establishing visual storytelling patterns—panel gutters, action flow, and character continuity—that became foundational to comic book grammar and design.