Bringing Up Father — 1925-03-26

Four panels track Maggie's social climbing in crisp black-and-white line work. Spotting an approaching lord and lady, she banishes Jiggs to the doghouse, instructs the maid to say the family is "supposed to be out," then preens over the callers' interest as proof of her place on their social list — only to learn they left a polite message saying they were sorry to miss Mr. Jiggs. The final panel's question mark balloon says everything. McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and its recurring cast, interlocking speech balloons, and page-to-page continuity helped establish the daily strip as the direct forerunner of the comic book — a sequential narrative art form sold, reprinted, and eventually bound between covers.