From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — buf400504
· ca. 1940s, King Features Syndicate

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* follows Jiggs, a newly rich Irish immigrant who craves corned beef and saloon company, and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. This daily strip opens with two men warning a character called "Muzzleface" Tony about entering a shootin' gallery run by "Iron Dipper," notorious for firing at the drop of a hat. Tony enters anyway, hat in hand; the gag lands in the final panel as Maggie leans from a window, scolding him for missing his ten-minute curfew — while chaos erupts around him. McManus's elegantly cross-hatched linework, crowd staging, and timed panel rhythm exemplify the vernacular visual grammar that newspaper strips — Sunday pages and dailies alike — bequeathed directly to the comic book format that emerged in the 1930s.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain