Bringing Up Father — buf390201

Four panels follow two men in top hats commiserating outside, then parting ways into a city night, with a final gag panel set in a crowded restaurant. The joke turns on marital phone monopoly: both men's wives have tied up their respective home lines until midnight, leaving the husbands' romantic or social intentions financially vetoed — *"my heart says yes, but my purse says no."* George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it for decades in syndication across hundreds of papers. McManus's clean brush line, Art Nouveau interior flourishes, and precisely timed balloon placement were widely imitated. These daily strips — collected, trimmed, and stapled — directly seeded the first comic books of the 1930s, making McManus a foundational figure in the medium's print grammar.