Buster Brown — 1905-01-08

Outcault's mischievous boy and his dog Tige are in London, and the Sunday page opens with a panoramic header of Queen's Guards before plunging into nine panels of domestic chaos: Buster hides Tige in a laundry hamper, the maid collects it for washing, and the dog erupts through linens in successive waves of slapstick, sending women fleeing and furniture flying until Buster himself is caught and thrashed. The strip closes with his deadpan Resolved moral—a signature Outcault device. Outcault had already created the Yellow Kid (1895), effectively inventing the recurring comic character; Buster Brown, launched 1902, refined the repeating panel grid, consistent speech balloons, and cause-and-effect gag structure that would become the architectural DNA of the American comic book.