Bringing Up Father

Four dailies follow Jiggs — the nouveau-riche Irish-American laborer perpetually at war with social aspiration — as he reclines in checked trousers on an armchair while a persistent tailor duns him for an unpaid bill. Unable to catch Jiggs at home, the tailor proposes a standing Monday-morning appointment; Jiggs, cornered, simply agrees. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913 for King Features Syndicate, running it until his death in 1954. McManus's clean line work, decorative interiors, and expressive speech balloons refined the visual grammar that daily comic strips — forerunners of the comic book format — were then establishing: sequential panels, recurring cast, and comedic rhythm sustained across years of installments.