Bringing Up Father — buf400301

Four panels track a familiar domestic standoff: Jiggs reads aloud a forwarded letter from Baton Rouge — their son wants more cash — while Maggie, angular and imperious, orders him to telephone the boy. Jiggs complies, then confronts the son with the economics of fatherhood; the son's reply, *"I'll bite, Dad — WHY?"* lands the punchline. McManus's draftsmanship is precise and elegant: heavy blacks, crosshatched vests, exaggerated silhouettes, and speech balloons that carry the comic's entire dramatic weight. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran in syndication for nearly nine decades. McManus — trained in the same newspaper art departments that gave rise to Outcault and Dirks — helped establish the visual conventions (recurring cast, sequential panels, integrated lettering) that newspaper strips handed directly to the first comic book anthologies of the 1930s.