Bringing Up Father — buf400125

Four panels follow Jiggs, the squat, top-hatted Irish-American social climber created by George McManus in 1913, as he huddles miserably in a snowdrift, desperate to slip away from wife Maggie and keep a date with Ryan at a clam bake. A billboard panel advertises the St. Paul Winter Carnival — Ice Vanities, Jack Frost Masked Ball, Coronation Pageant, skating, skiing, tobogganing — and the final panel shows Jiggs phoning Ryan to announce he plans to stay in Saint Paul all winter. McManus's art, with its Art Nouveau-inflected linework, ornate backgrounds, and expressive silhouette figures, exemplifies the Sunday-page draftsmanship that transformed newspaper strips into the direct precursor of the American comic book format.