Resolved! That You Have Just Simply Got to Be My Valentine

Richard Fenton Outcault's Buster Brown strip features the mischievous titular character in red outfit, holding a sword and paint brush, alongside his loyal bulldog Tige. The Valentine's Day greeting employs direct address and humorous coercion—a comedic device common to early comic strips. Outcault pioneered the visual vocabulary still used today: speech balloons, expressive cartooning, and recurring characters in serialized narratives. Buster Brown debuted in the New York Herald in 1902 and became one of the newspaper comic strip's first major successes, spawning merchandise and theatrical adaptations. The strip's anarchic humor and child protagonist helped establish comics as entertainment for younger readers, fundamentally shaping the medium's development into the twentieth century.