Smitty — Big Business

A four-panel daily strip following office boy Smitty through workplace antics. The narrative moves from Smitty's pride in building a swimming pool for employee bonding, through his boss's skeptical questions, to Smitty's promise of assistance—culminating in the boss's resigned acceptance. The strip employs the visual conventions established in early newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, varied shot composition, and character expressions that advance both plot and humor. Recurring characters and workplace settings anchored reader loyalty across daily installments, a formula that made newspaper strips the direct precursor to comic books and established the medium's core visual language.