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From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father — buf370410

· April 10, 1937 (King Features Syndicate)

Bringing Up Father — buf370410
Four panels follow Jiggs, the social-climbing Irish-American parvenu in top hat and checked suit, navigating a domestic crisis with broad physical comedy. A woman reads him a list of obligations; a fixer assures him steamship tickets to a coronation are arranged; a messenger relays that his furious wife has assigned staterooms to her mother, their daughter, and the dog Fifi — leaving Jiggs none. His deadpan reply — *"I got three rooms"* — lands the gag. McManus's draftsmanship is fluid and assured, his speech balloons tightly integrated. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran for nearly a century, its daily strip format directly feeding the reprint pamphlets that became the American comic book.

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