Bringing Up Father

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* — syndicated nationally by International News Service — follows the perpetual domestic war between newly-rich Jiggs and his social-climbing wife Maggie. In this four-panel daily, Jiggs escapes to a baseball game, savoring the peace: *"so different from home."* A foul ball promptly beams him on the head, and the final panel delivers the rueful punchline — he doesn't need to leave home to get bumps. McManus's line work is fluid and confident, his staging economical. Launched in 1913, the strip ran for decades and was one of the most widely read comics in the world, its recurring characters and gag-strip panel grammar helping to establish the visual conventions that daily newspaper comics — and eventually the comic book — would inherit wholesale.