Buster Brown was a comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault

Richard F. Outcault

Richard Felton Outcault was an American comic strip writer-artist. He was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown, and he is considered the inventor of the modern comic strip.-Early life:...

 who was known for his association with the Brown Shoe Company

Brown Shoe Company

Brown Shoe Company is a footwear company that owns a variety of footwear brands in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters is located in Clayton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.-Origins:...

. (The name "Buster" came either directly or indirectly from the popularity of Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

, then a child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

 in vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

.)

This mischievous young boy was loosely based on a boy near Outcault's home in Flushing, New York. His physical appearance, including the pageboy

Pageboy

The pageboy is a hairstyle named after what was believed to be the haircut of an English page boy. It has straight hair hanging to below the ear, where it usually turns under. Often there is a fringe in the front. This style was popular in the 1950s and 1960s.-Design and style:The pageboy...

 haircut, was utilized by Outcault and later adopted by Buster Brown.