Bringing Up Father — buf390228

Four panels follow Jiggs and a companion through an art museum. A woman urges visiting the next gallery to study 'still-life' paintings; a second character notes her brother is himself 'a study in still-life' because he never works. The group searches for the missing brother, who has slipped away the moment backs were turned. The final panel delivers the gag visually: a colossal classical statue looms over tiny Jiggs, a question mark balloon floating above. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and its clean brushwork, expressive silhouettes, and integrated speech balloons made it one of the most widely syndicated strips in the world — the daily newspaper page being the direct ancestor of the comic book format itself.