Smitty — Pie-Eyed!

This four-panel strip follows a domestic scene: a visitor arrives at the door, offers to take the host's hat, and is invited inside. The host then announces the arrival of "the pie man," prompting the visitor to dash toward the kitchen. The strip deploys the visual conventions that became standard in newspaper comics—sequential panels, speech balloons, and a recognizable recurring character—to build comedic momentum through escalating action. Smitty was among the prolific newspaper strips of the 1920s that established the visual grammar adopted by early comic books: panel borders directing eye movement, characters rendered in expressive line work, and gags built on physical comedy and surprise. Such dailies and Sunday pages formed the direct ancestor of the comic book industry.