Bringing Up Father — 1925-07-11

George McManus's daily strip follows Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber, and here puts a uniformed acquaintance center-stage. In four panels, a policeman on duty wishes he could visit his brother; a stout, top-hatted figure volunteers to swap hat and coat and take his place. A car arrives, the impostor waves it through with authority — and is promptly flattened by it, landing in a shower of cartoon stars and typographic expletives. McManus's draftsmanship is fluid and confident: rounded figures, meticulous period automobiles, and speech balloons whose lettering carries comic timing. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran in hundreds of papers worldwide, and its daily-strip format — fixed panels, recurring cast, cliffhanger rhythm — directly shaped the anthology reprint comics that became the first true comic books in the 1930s.