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From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father — 22 August 1925

· George McManus, 1925

Bringing Up Father — 22 August 1925
Four panels track a domestic standoff: a daughter asks her father Jiggs to send away the unwanted caller Mr. Kiltime; Jiggs opens the door and greets him warmly; the visitor deflects questions about dinner hour; and Jiggs, cane raised, promises to share the time *just as soon as you leave*. McManus draws his characters in bold ink outlines with cross-hatched check patterns on clothing — his signature shorthand for Jiggs's nouveau-riche vulgarity. Launched in 1913 by King Features, *Bringing Up Father* ran for nearly ninety years and syndicated worldwide, making McManus one of the first cartoonists to demonstrate that a recurring cast with consistent visual design could sustain daily newspaper strips — the direct commercial and formal ancestor of the comic book format.

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