Smitty — Auto Suggestion

This *Smitty* strip follows the visual conventions of newspaper comic art: four horizontal panels with speech balloons, sequential narrative, and a sight-gag payoff. A visiting aristocrat mistakes his chauffeur's route directions, leading to wrong turns and confusion. The strip uses panel borders to divide action, overlapping dialogue to convey pacing, and exaggerated character expressions to signal comedy. *Smitty* was a daily and Sunday newspaper comic that appeared in papers nationwide, employing the visual grammar—recurring characters, panel layout, lettering, and caricature—that became foundational to comic strip and comic book design. Newspaper strips of this era were laboratories for the sequential art techniques that would define the medium.