Smitty — Ride 'Em, Cowboy!

This newspaper comic strip follows a typical Smitty gag sequence: a character's mischief triggers escalating physical comedy across four panels. The strip employs the visual grammar that defined early comics—sequential panels advancing narrative time, speech balloons containing dialogue and reaction sounds ("OOP," "KICKER," "MERCHO"), and exaggerated body language. Smitty exemplifies the daily strip tradition that preceded comic books, where recurring characters and sight gags entertained readers in newspapers nationwide. The kinetic linework and slapstick staging were hallmarks of the form's invention, establishing conventions—panel gutters, perspective shifts, onomatopoeia—that became foundational to the medium.