Bringing Up Father — buf371129

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* ran in American newspapers from 1913 until 2000, making it one of the longest-lived daily strips in history. This four-panel daily follows the familiar domestic triangle: a woman urges a vacation to Alaska, her husband visits a shipping office (the Steamer La-La Lu-La, sailing Mondays and Fridays), and the travel agent — learning the wife is involved — deadpans that the Alaskan climate might *disagree with your wife*. The final panel lands the punchline wordlessly with a question mark. McManus's draftsmanship is unmistakable: Art Nouveau curlicues on furniture, exaggerated fashionable silhouettes, and crisp ink work. Strips like this one were the direct raw material from which the first comic books were assembled — reprinted tabloid pages folded and stapled, teaching readers the panel-to-panel grammar still standard today.