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.