Mr. Jack is an American comic strip by Jimmy Swinnerton which ran in William Randolph Hearst newspapers from August 30, 1903 until 1935. Mr. Jack, a philandering playboy tiger, may be the first developed cartoon animal character, a type that has since become a staple in the comics medium. The character emerged in Swinnerton's Hearst feature, The Little Tigers, which began on February 20, 1898. Mr. Jack first appeared on May 17, 1903, and took over the strip; soon, the title of the feature changed to Mr. Jack. History Jimmy Swinnerton began his career in 1892 as a young illustrator for the San Francisco Examiner, one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. Starting in 1893, he drew illustrations of a cute bear cub for the paper, originally to accompany the paper's coverage of the San Francisco Mid-Winter Exposition of 1894. After the fair, Swinnerton continued to draw bear cartoons to appear with the weather forecast. The bears became popular enough that Swinnerton created a regular feature, The Little Bears, that began on June 2, 1895 and continued through June 7, 1897. This feature is apparently the first American comic strip with recurring characters. Swinnerton's talents drew attention in the Hearst chain, and in 1898 he moved to New York City to draw cartoons for the New York Journal. Apparently at Hearst's request, he shifted his characters from bears to tigers, the emblem of Tammany Hall, creating The Little Tigers. The Tigers strip debuted on February 20, 1898. At first fairly generic, over time individual characters began to emerge, the most popular being the womanizing playboy "Mr. Jack", who first appeared on May 17, 1903. The first use of Mr. Jack as the title of the strip was on August 30, and that title was used consistently starting with the October 4, 1903 strip. While previous animal characters in art and fiction were often given some human features, such as clothing and speech, Swinnerton went a step further with Mr. Jack by giving him an essentially human body below his tiger head, complete with hands rather than paws and an upright stance. As such, comics historian Don Markstein wrote that he was probably "the first realized funny animal", a character type that would soon become very well established in comics and other media. Jack's rakish ways made him a target of protests that he was a bad example for children, and after