ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father

· July 30, 1919

Bringing Up Father
George McManus's daily strip follows Jiggs, the nouveau-riche Irish-American bricklayer, and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. In this four-panel strip, Maggie asks Jiggs to carry her gloves home; he pockets them, ducks into the office, and is caught by Maggie when she finds the gloves still in his pocket — earning a sound thrashing in the final panel. McManus's draftsmanship is distinctive: fluid Art Nouveau costuming on Maggie, exaggerated stars-and-swirls impact lines, and expressive silhouettes. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran for nearly a century and was syndicated to hundreds of papers worldwide, making it one of the first strips to demonstrate that a recurring cast with serialized domestic comedy could sustain a global readership — precisely the model that shaped the eventual anthology comic book format.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain