Bringing Up Father — buf370717

George McManus's long-running daily strip follows Jiggs, the newly rich Irish-American social climber, and here the gag turns on Fifi — a dog who, startled off a kitchen chair, crashes through the door and bolts after a passing wagon. Four panels move left to right with McManus's characteristic economy: interior dialogue gives way to open-street slapstick, landing on a question-mark thought balloon beside the 'I. Bendem Pretzel Company — A New Twist in Pastry' truck. The visual punchline is pure McManus: absurdist wordplay lettered on a vehicle. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran until 2000, making it one of the longest comic strips in history. McManus refined the architectural cross-section panel and elegant Art Nouveau linework that became standard visual grammar for generations of newspaper strip artists.