Bringing Up Father — buf391013

Three-panel daily strip by George McManus, copyright 1939. The strip follows Maggie and Jiggs, Irish-American social climbers whose domestic friction drove newspaper pages for decades. Here Maggie returns from Fort Duchesne draped in Western gear, proudly displaying what a bystander identifies as a cornerstone; a maid reports Jiggs is in his room. Final panel: Maggie, now in full Plains regalia, threatens to scalp him with a "tommy-hawk" if he laughs. McManus's draftsmanship is ornate — Art Nouveau flourishes frame every panel, figures wear patterned fabrics rendered with meticulous crosshatching. *Bringing Up Father* debuted in 1913 in Hearst syndication, making it among the longest-running strips in American newspaper history. These syndicated dailies, collected and reprinted in pamphlet form through the 1930s, were the direct precursor to what publishers would brand the comic book.