Bringing Up Father — buf200911ad

This newspaper advertisement promotes George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* as a live musical comedy at the Opera House, Frederick, Maryland — one night only, Monday, September 13, 1920 — and includes a four-panel comic strip to sell the show. The strip follows the familiar McManus formula: Jiggs, the stout Irish-American social climber, is served a subpoena by a neighbor acting as process server; his imperious wife Maggie discovers the ruse, kicks Jiggs out the door, and the final panel shows him tumbling through a window in a shower of stars. McManus's draftsmanship — elegant crosshatching, polka-dot dress, expressive silhouettes — is unmistakable. Launched in 1913 in the Hearst syndicate, *Bringing Up Father* refined the recurring-character daily strip into a commercial institution, its speech-balloon choreography directly shaping the visual grammar every subsequent comic inherited.