Bringing Up Father — buf391017

Three panels follow Jiggs's companion — a top-hatted, frock-coated figure — fumbling through a pea-soup fog. Panel one: he laments the density, wishing Jiggs would hurry. Panel two: Jiggs appears, baffled at being found at all. Panel three: the reveal — both men stand directly beside a steam locomotive parked under a bridge, its exhaust the entire 'fog.' George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913; by 1939 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide. McManus's clean Art Nouveau linework, expressive balloon lettering, and recurring immigrant-made-good characters Jiggs and Maggie established conventions — the sight-gag payoff panel, the consistent cast — that syndicated strips handed directly to the first comic book anthologists reprinting exactly this material.