Mutt and Jeff — 1908-09-04

One of the earliest recurring daily comic strips in American newspaper history, Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff helped establish the visual conventions the medium still uses: sequential panels read left to right, speech balloons anchored to individual characters, and a cast that returns strip after strip. Here, the lanky Mutt and his short companion Jeff walk the streets of New York, trading insults with strangers — a lunch-counter man, a spotted-dress woman, a child — each panel landing a quick gag on physical appearance. Fisher's loose pen line and broad caricature characterize the strip's energy. Launched in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1907, Mutt and Jeff ran daily before Sunday color pages existed, making it a direct ancestor of the comic book format that would crystallize by the 1930s.