Bringing Up Father — buf390914

Four horizontal panels follow Jiggs, the top-hatted social climber, as he presents Maggie with a candy box bearing Hollywood-star pictures — only to be scolded for letting a "painted, bleached blonde" at the candy stand trick him. Returning home, he discovers Maggie and a curly-haired friend already mid-gossip, and smoothly re-gifts the box as a thoughtful purchase. McManus's brushwork is fluid and decorative, with curlicued hair and expressive hands doing most of the acting. Launched by George McManus in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the first daily strips to perfect recurring character comedy and continuous narrative across panels — the structural DNA that newspaper syndicates exported directly into the first comic books of the late 1930s.