From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — buf400214
· February 14, 1940 (daily strip, King Features Syndicate)

George McManus's long-running daily strip follows Jiggs, a newly wealthy Irish-American, perpetually longing for simpler pleasures. In this four-panel strip, Jiggs relaxes in Miami, savoring the warm escape from northern cities like Toronto and Montreal—only to discover his family has dragged him indoors to an ice-skating rink. McManus's line work is elegant and rounded, his women drawn in exaggerated high fashion, Jiggs perpetually rumpled beside them. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the strips whose syndicated newspaper runs directly seeded the first comic books—reprinted page collections that taught readers, publishers, and artists alike that sequential panels with speech balloons could sustain recurring characters across decades.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain