Bringing Up Father — buf371213

Four daily panels by George McManus follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber in top hat and checked jacket, as he sneaks out for a night at the Opera House — where a showgirl revue advertises "60 Girls, Tonight Only" — while telling his wife Maggie he has a lodge meeting. Maggie, at right, suspects exactly what he's up to. McManus's line work is fluid and decorative, his lettered speech balloons integral to the panel architecture. *Bringing Up Father*, syndicated from 1913, was among the first strips to reach a global audience and helped codify the daily comic's grammar: recurring cast, sequential panels, punch-line close. That grammar migrated directly into the comic book format that emerged in the 1930s.