Mutt and Jeff

Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff holds a landmark place in comics history as one of the first successful daily newspaper comic strips — a pioneer of the very format that would define the medium. Fisher began the feature in the late 1900s (originally centered on the tall, scheming gambler A. Mutt) and soon paired him with the short, good-natured Jeff, creating the classic mismatched comedy duo whose contrasting heights became instantly iconic.

Beyond its popularity, the strip is historically important for the business precedent it set. Fisher took care to secure ownership of his creation and to sign his name prominently to it, and he became one of the earliest cartoonists to grow wealthy and famous from his strip — an early assertion of creator rights in a field where syndicates and publishers usually held the power.

Running day after day for decades (later continued by other hands), Mutt and Jeff helped establish the daily strip as a permanent institution of the American newspaper. In a gallery about comics growing more ambitious, it represents the essential first step: the durable, dependable daily feature that made everything else possible.