Bringing Up Father — 1922-07-09

Twelve panels follow Jiggs — the stout, tuxedoed Irish-American social climber — as he tries to charm a maid while his sharp-tongued wife Maggie schemes nearby. A visiting judge named Spoofus triggers the gag chain: Jiggs flirts, Maggie catches him, Jiggs briefly escapes to Dinty Moore's saloon, and the strip closes with the judge dismissing a case in Jiggs's favor. McManus's line work is clean and rounded, his interiors lush with patterned wallpaper. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran in syndication for nearly ninety years. These Sunday pages — alongside Herriman's *Krazy Kat* and Outcault's earlier *Yellow Kid* — established the recurring-character strip, the multi-panel gag sequence, and the expressive speech balloon as the structural DNA of the comic book form.