From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — buf361222
· Daily strip, c. December 22 (year uncertain, likely 1930s)
Four panels follow Maggie and Jiggs, George McManus's signature couple, through a nostalgia-soaked visit: an old photo album opens a flood of cheerful reminiscence — a bicycle errand to the pickle-works, a butcher suitor courting Aunt Mary, a celluloid-collar mishap, and childhood jealousy over ball-game outings. McManus's line is elegant and ornate, his figures dressed in bold patterned fabrics rendered with confident cross-hatching. *Bringing Up Father*, syndicated from 1913, ran in hundreds of papers worldwide and exemplifies the daily strip's role as the true cradle of the comic book: recurring characters, sequential panels, speech balloons, and visual storytelling rhythm — the entire grammar later anthology publishers would simply bind and sell.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain
