Smitty — Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

A four-panel daily strip following office boy Smitty and his monkey companion. The narrative unfolds left to right: Smitty seeks advice on removing the monkey from his neck, contemplates possible solutions, attempts various remedies that fail, and ultimately resigns himself to the situation. The strip exemplifies the visual conventions established in early newspaper comics—sequential panels with speech balloons, expressive line work, and recurring characters in ongoing predicaments. Smitty's workplace setting and deadpan humor reflect the period's urban comedy strips, which formed the foundation of American comic art before the emergence of dedicated comic books.