Bringing Up Father — 1929-07-17

Four panels track Jiggs's attempted escape from domestic duty: he tells a friend his wife Maggie isn't going to the opera, so neither is he — then bumps into Jim Casey, who confirms Mamie has no date, leaving Jiggs free. The strip cuts to Maggie on a sofa, overjoyed because the box office just gave someone two tickets — and that someone was Dinty, whom she threatens to kill. McManus's clean brushwork, checkered suits, and fluid speech balloons are exemplary of the King Features daily strip format that, compiled into pamphlets through the 1930s, literally became the comic book. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, its recurring cast and serialized domestic comedy establishing conventions every subsequent cartoonist inherited.