Bringing Up Father — buf370827

Four panels show Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber created by George McManus, out on a city rooftop with a movie camera. In panel one he resolves to film a good movie scene from the vantage point; in panel two he announces he wants 'different' shots; panel three shows a large woman lunging toward the camera; panel four shows Jiggs airborne and bewildered, a question mark floating above his head. McManus's line work is sinuous and art-deco precise — curved cityscapes, elegantly weighted brushwork — hallmarks of a strip that ran from 1913 until 2000. *Bringing Up Father* was among the King Features properties that shaped the visual language of newspaper comics: the fixed recurring cast, the punch-line final panel, and speech balloons whose rhythm trained generations of readers — and eventually comic-book artists — in sequential storytelling.