Smitty

A daily newspaper comic strip following the misadventures of Smitty, an office boy, and his animal companions. This strip exemplifies the visual storytelling conventions that defined early comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, expressive figure drawing, and running gags built on character interaction. The four-panel structure moves from exposition through escalating action to punchline—a format perfected in the dailies that became the template for modern comic narratives. Such strips appeared in hundreds of newspapers, reaching millions of readers and establishing the visual language that would define the medium.