Smitty—Grin and Bear It

A four-panel strip following a boy and his bear encounter. The sequence uses clear panel progression and speech balloons to advance a simple narrative: a child warns another character not to touch a bear, leading to escalating action across the layout. The pen-and-ink style and recurring boy character typify the newspaper comic strips that emerged in the 1920s–30s, when artists established the visual vocabulary of sequential storytelling—bordered panels, word balloons, and character consistency—that would become the foundation of comic books. These strips appeared daily or Sunday in papers nationwide, reaching millions and demonstrating that illustrated narratives could sustain ongoing characters and episodic humor for broad audiences.