Bringing Up Father — buf391223

Four panels follow Jiggs and a companion through a museum. In panel one, a woman points out a Venus de Milo replica; Jiggs is warned to move along before anyone thinks he damaged it. Panels two and three deliver the central gag: surrounded by modernist sculpture and tribal art, Jiggs finds the objects merely 'funny-looking.' The final panel reveals they are in Erie, Pennsylvania — a groan-worthy pun on 'eerie.' George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* for King Features in 1913, running it until his death in 1954. Its social comedy of the nouveau-riche Irish immigrant Jiggs yearning for corned beef over high society made it one of the most widely syndicated strips globally. McManus's clean ink line and his characters' elaborate patterned clothing directly shaped the visual shorthand of newspaper comics — a medium whose daily panels and recurring casts are the direct ancestors of the comic book format.