Bringing Up Father — 1925-10-16

Four panels follow Jiggs, the henpecked Irish-American social climber, on moving day. His wife Maggie has gone ahead to their new house, leaving him to oversee the movers — an assignment he promptly abandons. A stranger asks where he's headed; Jiggs admits he has no idea. Arriving to find an empty street and the last van gone, he sits bewildered on a curb, resigned to the beating Maggie will surely deliver. McManus's draftsmanship is elegant: crosshatched coats, expressive silhouettes, cleanly lettered balloons. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, syndicated internationally. Its domestic comedy and recurring cast helped establish the daily comic strip as a narrative form — the direct ancestor of the comic book page.