Bringing Up Father — buf400808

Four panels follow Jiggs and his daughter through a domestic mishap. In the first, Jiggs examines a head-bump in a mirror, muttering about getting rid of it before nightfall. His daughter leans through a window in panel two, relieved that some worry has passed. Panel three shows her asking what's wrong — mother is upset because she can't find the rolling pin she got yesterday. The final panel explains why: Maggie has hurled it at Jiggs, who tumbles off-panel amid a scatter of stars. McManus launched this strip in 1913, running it for nearly four decades. Its fluid draftsmanship, expressive silhouettes, and tight comedic timing helped codify the visual grammar — recurring characters, sequential panels, speech balloons — that Sunday newspaper pages exported directly into the first comic books of the 1930s.