Bringing Up Father — buf370708

Four daily panels by George McManus follow Jiggs, the round-faced, spiky-haired social climber, as he frets over his missing dog Fifi—then quietly slips off to make himself a sandwich, only to be caught by his furious wife Maggie. The gag is pure McManus: Jiggs's self-interest puncturing domestic sentiment, Maggie's operatic outrage in the final panel. McManus drew with an elegant Art Deco line—arched doorways, patterned wallpaper—giving working-class comedy an improbably stylish frame. Launched in 1913 by King Features, *Bringing Up Father* was among the first newspaper strips reprinted in collected pamphlet form, a direct ancestor of the comic book format that would codify in the late 1930s.