Bringing Up Father — February 27, 1925

Four panels follow Jiggs, the eternally hen-pecked Irish-American social climber in top hat and tails, as he schemes to stay out late. His wife Maggie, shown in the second panel admiring a $400 dress with a friend, is blissfully unaware he plans to feign sleep on his return. The final panel deflates him: no dance, no poker game in town tonight. McManus's draftsmanship is elegant — Art Nouveau flourishes on the women's figures, bold ink outlines, and speech balloons packed with vernacular dialogue. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran for nearly ninety years, its daily strip format helping standardize the visual conventions — sequential panels, integrated text, recurring cast — that newspaper comics handed directly to the first comic books of the 1930s.