The Adventures of Mr. Tom Plump

Mr. Tom Plump, a portly gentleman of leisure, debuted in a single 1850 issue from Huestis & Cozans, making it one of the earliest American comic series. Though brief, this proto-comic strip established a template for humorous character-driven sequential art decades before the medium's formalization. Its historical significance lies in its pioneering use of recurring visual gags and a fixed protagonist, marking a foundational step in the evolution of comics.