Smitty

A daily newspaper comic strip following the misadventures of Smitty, a streetwise office boy working for a tough boss. In this sequence, Smitty's friend warns him that the boss has been irritable all week, prompting Smitty to resolve staying out of trouble—a resolution tested immediately when his boss orders him to run errands. The strip employs the visual conventions pioneered in newspaper comics: rectangular panels arranged left-to-right, speech balloons advancing dialogue, and exaggerated facial expressions conveying emotion and personality. Smitty's working-class protagonist and rapid gag structure made the strip a fixture of the funny pages, influencing the visual language that would define comic books.