Bringing Up Father

Four panels follow Maggie's scolding lecture to guests—*don't ask for anything, it's very impolite*—immediately undercut when a visitor wishes aloud for a drink. Her husband Jiggs deadpans the escape clause: *I didn't ask for anything—I just wished for it.* George McManus drew this daily strip from 1913 until his death in 1954, chronicling the Irish-American nouveau-riche couple whose social climbing collides with Jiggs's longing for corned beef and the old neighborhood. McManus's ligne-claire draftsmanship—fluid Art Nouveau figures, patterned dresses, economical backgrounds—set a visual standard for newspaper comics. Those newspaper dailies and Sunday pages were the direct precursor to the comic book format, establishing speech balloons, sequential panel rhythm, and recurring characters as the grammar of an entirely new graphic medium.