Smitty

A daily newspaper comic strip following the misadventures of a mischievous office boy. This panel sequence shows Smitty's characteristic plot structure: a problem arises (the boss notices his absence), Smitty devises a scheme (feigning illness to avoid morning attention), and the gag escalates when his plan backfires (castor oil as "medicine"). The strip exemplifies the visual conventions that became standard in comic narratives—sequential panels advancing the action, speech balloons for dialogue, and recurring characters in predicable yet surprising situations. Smitty's format as a newspaper daily serial helped establish the visual grammar that would define the medium for decades.