Bringing Up Father — buf400618

Four panels show Jiggs and Maggie returning from abroad, she rhapsodizing about home — the veranda, the birds, the neighbors — while Jiggs trails behind in hapless agreement. When Maggie announces she must resume her singing lessons, the final panel cuts to Jiggs alone, blanching at the thought. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by 1940 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide, its clean ink line and ornate Art Nouveau interiors instantly recognizable. McManus refined the visual conventions — shaped speech balloons, sequential panel rhythm, a recurring cast — that daily newspaper strips handed directly to the first comic books. The strip's gag structure, domestic misunderstanding resolved in a single throwaway beat, remains a template for short-form sequential comedy.