ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father — buf400220

· ca. 1940 (King Features Syndicate; exact date unverified)

Bringing Up Father — buf400220
George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and it ran for decades as one of the most widely syndicated strips in the world. This daily strip follows the eternal social comedy of Jiggs — stocky, checked-suited, cigar-clamped — trying to escape his socially ambitious wife Maggie for simpler pleasures. Here, set in New Orleans, Jiggs angles to visit a friend on Canal Street while Maggie steers the agenda toward Beauregard Square; a bartender figure promises mint juleps and silver fizzes; a dapper companion in top hat cheerfully volunteers to chaperone. McManus's draftsmanship — fluid Art Nouveau linework, elegantly dressed women, expressive pantomime — helped establish the recurring-character daily strip as a commercial and artistic institution, its panel-by-panel rhythm directly feeding the anthology comic books of the 1930s–40s.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain