Smitty — O, Woodman, Spare That Tree!

A four-panel daily strip following Smitty, a boy with outsized ambitions. In the first panel, Gerby finds his rival and boasts of future wealth; Smitty dismisses the claim. The second panel escalates the boast to yachts and ponies. By the third panel, Smitty raises him: his father owns the corner soda store. In the final panel, Smitty stands triumphant beneath a large tree, having won the competition through sheer audacity. The strip employs the visual conventions that became standard in newspaper comics: distinct panels, speech balloons, and a recurring cast of child characters engaged in everyday competition and one-upmanship. Smitty ran as a daily and Sunday feature, helping establish the comic strip as a major form of entertainment and visual storytelling in American newspapers during the 1920s.