Bringing Up Father — buf390117

Four panels follow the domestic standoff between stout, fashionable Maggie and her reluctant husband Jiggs. Maggie commands him to dress for her social-club luncheon; Jiggs, caught mid-sneeze, protests he intends to spend the day in his room reading and napping. A maid appears bearing a tray, her question mark balloon registering bafflement at the household chaos. In the final panel Jiggs, now suited, surrenders: he'll "put in an appearance" to please Maggie. George McManus's linework is characteristic — exuberant curls, patterned wallpaper, expressive silhouettes. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the first newspaper strips to feature recurring working-class-immigrant characters navigating new money, and its panel-and-balloon grammar directly shaped the anthology reprints that became the first true comic books.