Bringing Up Father

Four panels follow Jiggs and Maggie at a health resort whose famous waters cure "all aches and pains." Jiggs spots a large cemetery from his window, then meets a group of locals using wheelchairs and canes who cheerfully confirm they all have rheumatism and neuritis—"but we didn't come here, we were born here." The punchline lands deadpan: one man admits he *did* come for the cure and got the ailments instead. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, making it one of the longest-running strips in syndication history. His clean ligne-claire figures, precise crosshatching on formal wear, and stacked speech balloons exemplify the daily newspaper strip's role as incubator of the visual grammar—panel sequencing, integrated text, recurring cast—that comic books would directly inherit.