Bringing Up Father — buf390128

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* follows Jiggs, the nouveau-riche Irish-American laborer turned millionaire, and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. This four-panel daily strip turns entirely on a telephone busy signal: Maggie repeatedly dials a Mrs. Dick Taphone while Jiggs hovers, offering sardonic commentary, until he resolves to apologize in person — only to find the line still occupied. McManus's clean line work, elegant Art Deco interiors, and precisely lettered speech balloons are hallmarks of his draftsmanship. Launched in 1913 in the *New York American*, the strip ran for decades and reached tens of millions of readers globally. Daily newspaper strips like this one — with their recurring characters, sequential panels, and integrated dialogue — directly established the visual grammar that comic books would codify by the late 1930s.