(This is just for fun)

In case you didn't get enough Richard Outcault yesterday, here's an example of some of the stuff I was talking about. (Though this sequence is cartooned more thoroughly than a lot of his other work was.) Below is probably my favorite single newspaper strip of all time, or at least the funniest one I've ever seen:


(Click to enlarge; sorry, I had to post this as two images since the book I have is weird and splits each strip in half on separate pages)




I love how utterly vacant Buster looks in the first panel, the prototypical problem child. Tige's opposing facial expressions are excellent as well -- this stuff is total vaudeville, with one borderline sensical character looking on in alternating horror and perplexity at the crazier one's antics.

Then, oh boy, he milks the cow. That expression of pure joy on Buster's face in contrast to Tige and the horse's "ohhhh, shiiiit" mugs is awesome, and you can tell that cow feels "udderly" transgressed against. Then, BAM!, the intense kinesis of the cow's kick; and OOOH!, the horse's outrage at the violence of it all. Outcault sets it up and knocks it down with the best of them. There's the hyperbolic action/reaction of the cow's second kick (another great expression from the horse, and Buster's dazed hand held up weakly in defense are excellent details), and then the Dada frenzy of the last three panels, the animals' anatomies shot to hell with the vigor of it all. And of course, the perfect ending to a Buster Brown strip: Buster and Tige laughing their asses off, followed by a typically daft "resolution". I love this stuff.