Tad Dorgan: "Bunk" comic strip, 1908

Early "Tad" comic strip featuring "Bunk" the dog, published in the Sports section of the NY Evening Journal in December, 1908. This was the time when Dorgan was supposedly mentoring George Herriman, but their work is so similar during this period that it's hard to tell, really, which way the influence went. The third panel in particular looks remarkably like Herriman's style. Interesting that there's no brushwork; it's all pen and ink. Tad's figures are still a little crude here, but that would improve rapidly.

One can detect the influence of Frederick Opper here, and Tad was probably inspired to do "funny animal" strips by Jimmy Swinnerton, then already in his prime at the New York Journal, Hearst's flagship newspaper, in which this drawing was probably also published.