Bringing Up Father — buf370820

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* (syndicated from 1913) follows Jiggs, a nouveau-riche Irishman perpetually caught between his wife Maggie's social ambitions and his own earthy habits. In this four-panel daily, Jiggs attempts home photography: crouching with a small camera, he directs his subject to hold still while he backs up for the shot — then tumbles down a staircase in the final panel, camera and body airborne. McManus's line is confident Art Deco elegance: crosshatched waistcoats, precise architectural interiors, expressive rubber-limbed figures. *Bringing Up Father* was among the first strips reprinted in collected pamphlet form, a direct ancestor of the comic book format. McManus refined the speech balloon and sequential panel grammar that cartoonists worldwide would inherit.