Buster Brown — Omaha Sunday Bee, December 6, 1908

This single-panel cartoon, reproduced small within the Sunday paper's front section, carries the header "What's Wrong?" and depicts a tree-climbing scene rendered in the loose, expressive line work typical of early-century newspaper illustration. Buster Brown, R. F. Outcault's middle-class mischief-maker, debuted in the *New York Herald* in 1902 and quickly became one of America's first licensed comic characters — his face selling shoes, whiskey, and bread simultaneously. Outcault had already invented the modern Sunday page format with *The Yellow Kid* (1895–98), proving that recurring characters in sequential panels could anchor a newspaper's circulation. These syndicated Sunday pages — not bound reprints — are the direct ancestor of the comic book, establishing panel sequencing, expressive typography, and character branding as commercial art forms.