Bringing Up Father

Jiggs — squat, red-haired, dressed in his iconic patterned pajamas — moves through a grand house in twelve panels, waking up, checking his reflection, peering at a sleeping Maggie, wandering the rooms, and finally breaking the fourth wall to address readers directly: *"Well, folks — I just 'phoned McManus — he's not up yet — an' I don't know what to do — so-o-o-o—"* George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it for decades as one of the longest-lived strips in American syndication. Its visual rhythm — tight domestic settings, pantomime action, ornate Art Nouveau furnishings — influenced how cartoonists worldwide structured sequential storytelling. The Sunday page format McManus perfected here fed directly into the first comic book reprints of the 1930s.