From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — buf390812
· 1939 (copyright date visible in strip)

Four panels follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber created by George McManus, as he tries to quiet a crying baby on a staircase landing. A tenant knocks to complain about the infant's wailing; Jiggs stammers an apology — then the punchline lands: his adult daughter emerges, revealing *she* was the one crying alongside the baby. McManus's ligne-claire draftsmanship is on full display: hatched waistcoats, rubbery facial takes, and speech balloons whose lettering bends to match each character's hesitation. *Bringing Up Father* launched in 1913 and ran for decades, its daily and Sunday strips helping establish the recurring-cast comic as a newspaper staple — the direct commercial and formal ancestor of the comic book pamphlets that followed in 1933–38.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain