Bringing Up Father — buf371001

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* ran from 1913 to 2000, making it one of the longest-lived strips in newspaper history. This daily shows Jiggs feigning a sore foot to skip the opera, only for Maggie and their daughter to leave without him — whereupon he springs up, fully dressed, to meet his pals at the corner. Three tight panels carry the gag cleanly: domestic complaint, sick-bed ruse, gleeful escape. McManus's line work is distinctive — ornate Art Nouveau flourishes on Maggie's gown, bold silhouette on Jiggs in his top hat. Strips like this one were the direct raw material of the first comic books, which were initially just reprinted newspaper dailies bound together and sold on newsstands.