Bringing Up Father — 1919-07-18

Six horizontal panels follow the sleepwalking Nora gag: a man shouts at her door, a woman in evening dress suggests fetching a policeman to break in, Nora glides past obliviously in her nightcap, two characters debate whether the policeman has been found, and the punchline reveals he was located — but couldn't be woken either. McManus draws in his characteristic Art Nouveau–inflected line: sinuous figures, bold black masses, economical backgrounds. *Bringing Up Father*, syndicated by King Features from 1913, reached tens of millions of daily readers and was among the first strips reprinted in collected pamphlet form — the direct ancestor of the comic book. Its recurring cast, sequential panel grammar, and integrated speech balloons codified conventions still used today.