Bringing Up Father — buf371127

Four panels track Jiggs — McManus's Irish-American social climber in white tie and spats — attempting to telephone his pal Tom Hanjerry. He dials 'Plaza-Seven-Six-Five-Two,' the phone explodes in a shower of stars and sparks, and he lands flat on the floor. The final panel: a bystander asks 'What happened?' Jiggs replies, 'I called up a number and I got it right away.' George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and its clean Art Nouveau linework, expressive star-burst impact symbols, and punchy single-gag dailies became templates for the medium. These syndicated strips — appearing in hundreds of papers simultaneously — directly seeded the reprint anthologies that became the first comic books.