Bringing Up Father — 1925-07-29

Four panels follow Jiggs, the nouveau-riche Irish-American husband, after losing his poker money. Reduced to a nickel, he orders just coffee at a lunch counter. A departing customer leaves a dime tip; the waiter, eyeing it, responds to Jiggs's implied hunger by sliding him a piece of pie alongside the coin. McManus renders the gag almost wordlessly in the final beats, trusting facial expression and timing. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, syndicated internationally. McManus's clean ink line, architectural panel borders, and sophisticated use of the speech balloon helped establish the visual grammar that daily strips handed directly to the first comic books of the 1930s.