The Early Years of MUTT & JEFF (Forever Nuts: Classic Screwball Strips)
Mutt and Jeff was the first successful daily comic strip; before it, the funnies were Sunday features. It debuted in 1907, however, as A. Mutt, limning the follies of lanky racetrack gambler Augustus Mutt. Diminutive sidekick Jeff appeared the following year to form a partnership that lasted until the strip's overdue demise in 1983. Mutt and Jeff was the first strip to essay weeks-long story lines, such as a trip to Mexico to join Pancho Villa's revolution. Compared to better-remembered strips of the era, Mutt and Jeff was crudely drawn, yet it captured the nation's fancy. Despite its significance in comics history, Mutt and Jeff is scantly regarded today. By the mid-1920s, Fisher handed creative duties over to ghosts to free up time for the playboy lifestyle that the strip's sizable revenues allowed him. Unlike such more prestigious classic strips as Gasoline Alley and Dick Tracy, Mutt and Jeff doesn't warrant comprehensive reprinting. This selection of episodes from 1909–13 represents it quite sufficiently. Flagg, Gordon