Bringing Up Father — buf400403

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* — syndicated from 1913 until his death in 1954 — follows Jiggs, a nouveau-riche Irishman forever caught between his wife Maggie's social ambitions and his love of corned beef and pool halls. In this daily strip dated April 3, 1940, Maggie takes a phone call from a 'Buck Wheat,' strong-arms Jiggs into a Capitol tour and dinner with Washington luminaries, then watches him slip away to the Capitol Cafe instead. McManus draws in a fluid Art Deco line — Maggie's elaborate gown, Jiggs's checked suit and top hat rendered with confident economy. The strip's visual grammar, speech balloons threading naturally across four panels, helped codify the sequential conventions that Sunday newspaper pages handed directly to the first comic book publishers of the late 1930s.