Bringing Up Father — 1925-11-10

Four panels follow Jiggs as he borrows a rapid-fire gun from an admiral to frighten burglars away from his porch. He reports success to Maggie — then she informs him the crooks have simply stolen the weapon, and he will have to pay for it. McManus's line work is confident and economical: checked suit, top hat, and Maggie's floral dress read instantly across tiny newsprint columns. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, syndicated internationally by International Feature Service. George McManus refined the domestic-comedy strip to a formal system — recurring characters with fixed silhouettes, punch-line final panels, and interlocking speech balloons — tools every subsequent cartoonist inherited directly from the daily newspaper page.