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From the exhibition

Happy Hooligan — Omaha Daily Bee, May 11, 1913

· May 11, 1913

Happy Hooligan — Omaha Daily Bee, May 11, 1913
This broadsheet Sunday page pairs two strips by Frederick Burr Opper. The top tier, *No! There's No Doubt About Happy Hooligan!*, runs six panels: Hooligan — his tin-can hat the strip's visual signature — is dragged through a series of drawing-room misadventures involving his brother Gloomy Gus and the imperious Alphonse, ending in a chase and a flying swat. Below, *Jimmy — He Sees the Seals Fight!* tracks a family's ten-panel beach outing interrupted by brawling seals. Opper's line is loose and kinetic; speech balloons carry overlapping crosstalk across crowd scenes. Launched in 1900 for Hearst's syndicate, *Happy Hooligan* belongs to the foundational generation of American newspaper comics — alongside *The Yellow Kid* and *Mutt and Jeff* — whose recurring characters, sequential panels, and integrated dialogue balloon invented the visual language the comic book would later inherit wholesale.

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