Bringing Up Father — 1925-02-03

Four panels of domestic comedy: Jiggs counsels Maggie to make peace between their quarreling daughter and son-in-law Billy; Maggie turns on him with a pointed finger and a sharp warning to mind his own business; Jiggs reflects on the weeping daughter alone in her room; then Maggie, moments later, cheerfully accepts a telephone invitation from "Jack" for an auto ride, her tears forgotten. McManus's line is fluid and assured — ornate floral wallpaper, expressive silhouettes, speech balloons integrated into the action. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, syndicated internationally. These daily strips, alongside Outcault's *Yellow Kid* and Dirks's *Katzenjammer Kids*, established the formal conventions — recurring cast, sequential panels, balloon dialogue — that newspaper comics pages handed directly to the first comic books of the 1930s.