Bringing Up Father — buf370308

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* (syndicated from 1913) follows Irish immigrant-made-good Jiggs and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. In this four-panel daily, the couple dine out: Maggie orders a plain salad, Melba toast, and tea — each request met with incredulous waitstaff who find her simplicity "rather extraordinary." The punchline turns on her disheveled appearance; she isn't dieting, she's just fixing herself up to look like Jiggs. McManus's line work — Art Nouveau flourishes, elegantly dressed figures, precise cross-hatching — was among the most polished in newspaper comics. King Features Syndicate distributed the strip to millions of readers whose daily papers, stacked and stapled, would directly inspire the first comic book anthologies of the mid-1930s.