Bringing Up Father

Four panels follow Jiggs, the perpetually henpecked Irish-American social climber, as he rebels against a milk diet. Talking to himself on a porch, he resolves to see Doctor Hugh Kiddum; he arrives at the office muttering he's forgetting how to use a knife and fork; the doctor asks how he feels; Jiggs complains of walking ten miles and drinking a bottle of milk daily — and the doctor simply halves both prescriptions. McManus's clean brushwork, round-bodied figures, and expressive reaction takes are fully mature here. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran in hundreds of Hearst syndicate papers and, alongside *Mutt and Jeff* and *Krazy Kat*, proved that recurring comic-strip characters with consistent visual personalities could sustain reader loyalty for decades — the commercial and narrative logic that made the later comic book possible.