Smitty: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

This daily strip follows Smitty, a young office boy navigating workplace mishaps and authority figures. The sequence deploys the visual conventions that defined newspaper comics: rectangular panels in linear progression, speech balloons advancing dialogue, and a recurring protagonist in everyday situations. The gag hinges on Smitty's boss noticing a dramatic personality shift—a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation suggested through character expression and context rather than explicit visual alteration. The strip's economical line work and clear panel-to-panel staging exemplify how newspaper cartoonists developed the grammar of sequential art: using composition, gesture, and juxtaposition to tell stories that moved beyond single-panel gags into sustained narrative and character development.