Smitty

In this daily strip, Smitty learns a dance routine from his boss. The sequence unfolds across four panels: the instructor announces the steps—"one-two-three, turn"—while Smitty mimics the movements. By the final panel, confusion reigns as Smitty has somehow ended up outside in the dark, prompting a question mark from his bewildered teacher. The strip's visual economy depends on the newspaper comics' essential devices: sequential panels advancing action, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and a recurring character whose misadventures anchor reader interest across daily installments. *Smitty*, which ran from 1921 to 1973, exemplified the wordless-to-dialogue gag format that dominated American newspaper comics, influencing how visual narrative would structure the emerging comic book medium.