Bringing Up Father

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* — syndicated by International News Service from 1913 — follows nouveau-riche Jiggs, forever caught between the old neighborhood and his wife Maggie's social ambitions. In this daily strip, Maggie threatens Jiggs with a vase if he leaves; a maid named Lisa, caught gossiping mid-panel, is silenced when Maggie announces she's 'considering her one of the family.' The final panel's lone question mark closes the gag wordlessly. McManus drew in confident brushwork, his ruffled skirts and stacked silhouettes showing the Art Nouveau influence he absorbed from Alphonse Mucha. Strips like this one — printed daily across hundreds of papers — established the recurring-cast serial comic as a mass medium, directly seeding the anthology reprint pamphlets that became the comic book.