Bringing Up Father

George McManus's long-running daily strip follows the eternal domestic war between nouveau-riche Maggie and her hapless husband Jiggs, who would rather play poker with his working-class pal Dinty Moore than endure bourgeois respectability. In this strip, Maggie confiscates every umbrella and hides Jiggs's clothes to keep him home in the rain; undeterred, he discovers his polka-dotted robe, slips out muttering that he'll win enough at poker to buy a proper suit, and arrives at Dinty's soaking and triumphant. McManus's draftsmanship — Art Nouveau flourishes, immaculate crosshatching, expressive balloon lettering — set a visual standard that shaped the newspaper page as the direct ancestor of the comic book. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, syndicated worldwide.