Bringing Up Father — buf370803

Four panels follow the long-running domestic war between Jiggs and his imperious wife Maggie. Here Jiggs, slumped in his armchair, complains that the new butler is "the clumsiest ox" he ever saw. The butler promptly proves the point in a crash of sound-effects — CRASH! BANG! GONG! PONG! — sending furniture flying. Maggie storms in demanding silence; Jiggs retorts he'd like to see *her* fall down a flight of stairs and break the dishes without making noise. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it until his death in 1954. His sinuous Art Nouveau linework, elegantly dressed figures, and tightly timed four-panel rhythm made the strip a template for domestic comedy and influenced the page design conventions that newspaper dailies handed directly to the first comic books.