Bringing Up Father — buf400304

Four panels track Jiggs, the Irish immigrant bricklayer turned reluctant millionaire, scheming to escape his socially ambitious wife Maggie. Here he fumes that her brother has returned from Washington, wishes aloud for some escape, then receives word — delivered by a servant — that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI intends to call on him that afternoon. The final panel shows a wrecked room and Jiggs alone: the brother apparently fled at the mere mention of Hoover. George McManus drew *Bringing Up Father* continuously from 1913 until his death in 1954, his sinuous Art Nouveau linework and meticulous interior detail making it one of the longest-running and most widely syndicated strips in history. Sunday pages like this one — self-contained, narratively tight — were the direct precursors to the comic book page format.