Bringing Up Father — buf390110

Four panels follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber of George McManus's long-running daily strip, as two club women recruit his wife Maggie to clean up their unnamed city of crooks, loafers, and tramps. Maggie agrees with imperious confidence while Jiggs stands goggle-eyed in the background, asking "All of 'em?" The gag lands in the final panel: the reformers plan to tear down the city jail—leaving Jiggs, who famously sneaks out to Dinty Moore's saloon, nowhere to sleep. McManus's brushwork is distinctive: lush curvilinear Art Nouveau flourishes, crosshatched shading, and expressive rubber-faced figures. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the earliest strips reprinted in collected pamphlet form—a direct ancestor of the comic book format that would codify by decade's end.