Smitty — To Arms

This *Smitty* strip follows the newspaper comic's visual grammar: a four-panel sequence moving left to right, with speech balloons and sequential action. Lord Axford presents a baby in armor to young Smitty; the child, outfitted as a soldier, proceeds through exaggerated physical comedy—tumbling, struggling, collapsing under the costume's weight. The humor turns on physical gags and scale: an infant rendered absurd by adult military trappings. *Smitty*, launched in the 1920s, epitomized the daily strip tradition that directly preceded comic books—formulaic characters, recurring settings, and sight gags designed for newspaper serialization. The strip's success helped establish the visual and narrative conventions that cartoonists would carry into the emerging comic book format.