Bringing Up Father — buf390915

Three panels follow two overdressed women outside a movie theater mobbed by autograph-seekers. One woman complains her hand was stepped on; the other wishes her husband were present—then catches herself, relieved her son-in-law didn't witness the undignified crowd. The final panel delivers the gag: he's already collected ten movie stars' signatures in his autograph book. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* for King Features Syndicate in 1913, running it until his death in 1954. Its Irish-immigrant social climbers Maggie and Jiggs became among the most widely syndicated characters on earth, appearing in papers across dozens of countries. McManus's crisp Art Nouveau linework and architecturally precise backgrounds helped establish the daily comic strip's visual conventions—panel borders, integrated speech balloons, and recurring cast—that directly fed the nascent comic book format emerging through the 1930s.