 From January until November 1903 , McCay drew an ongoing proto @-@ comic strip for the Enquirer based on poems written by George Randolph Chester called A Tale of the Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle . Before the last two instalments appeared in print , McCay had moved to New York City to work for James Gordon Bennett , Jr . ' s New York Herald , at first doing illustrations and editorial cartoons . He worked alongside comic strip pioneer Richard F. Outcault , who was doing the Buster Brown strip at the Herald . A rivalry built up between the two cartoonists which resulted in Outcault leaving the Herald to return to his previous employer , William Randolph Hearst at The New York Journal . 
