Buster Brown

R. F. Outcault's Uncle Buster Pays a Visit to Buster Brown, published in the New York Herald, follows the mischievous boy Buster, his dog Tige, and a visiting uncle who performs cigarette smoke tricks — blowing clouds from his ears, eye, and pocket — culminating in outdoor chaos and a warning cry of "Look out, Uncle Buster!" Outcault draws in confident pen-and-ink crosshatch, organizing the action across twelve panels with fluid speech balloons and expressive slapstick timing. Outcault had already invented the modern comic strip with The Yellow Kid (1895); Buster Brown refined the formula — recurring cast, consistent visual world, week-to-week continuity — that would directly seed the comic book format two decades later.