Bringing Up Father — buf371225

Four panels follow Jiggs, George McManus's perennially hen-pecked Irish-American social climber, as he slips back into his workplace and is caught by his boss. The gag turns on Jiggs fetching his brown-bag lunch — corned beef and cabbage, the dish his sister makes at home and no restaurant can replicate — only to be rehired on the spot when the boss realizes there is enough for two. McManus's draftsmanship is distinctive: sinuous Art Nouveau linework, heavily pompadoured figures, and expressive open mouths driving the comedy. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran for decades as a daily and Sunday strip, and strips exactly like this one — sequenced panels, integrated speech balloons, recurring cast — supplied the page layouts and visual conventions that early comic book publishers simply reprinted and eventually imitated.