Bringing Up Father — buf370702

Four panels show two women trading gushing endearments about their respective "darlings" — one turns out to be a husband, the other a lapdog named Fifi, nicknamed "Toodlums." The joke pivots on the identical language of doting devotion. George McManus draws his characters in bold, rounded ink lines with crosshatched blacks; the women's elaborate hairdos and patterned dresses are pure McManus shorthand. *Bringing Up Father*, launched in 1913, ran for nearly a century, making Irish immigrant Jiggs and his social-climbing wife Maggie among the longest-lived characters in comics. McManus refined the visual grammar — consistent character design, rhythmic panel pacing, speech balloons integrated into composition — that daily syndicated strips handed directly to the first comic book anthologists of the 1930s.