Bringing Up Father — buf400212

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by 1940 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide — a direct ancestor of the comic book, which was then still packaging newspaper reprints into pamphlet form. This daily strip opens with Maggie drinking what she claims is Fountain of Youth water from St. Augustine; husband Jiggs deflates the legend by noting he drank the same bottle yesterday and went out to buy a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. The gag lands in the final panels when a small boy in ruffled collar skips in crowing "I am!" McManus's clean brushwork, expressive silhouettes, and interlocking speech balloons across four panels demonstrate the visual grammar — character continuity, setup-and-punchline panel rhythm — that Sunday and daily strips handed wholesale to the comic book medium.