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From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father — buf400812

· c. 1940 (copyright line visible; exact date unconfirmed)

Bringing Up Father — buf400812
George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* ran in syndication from 1913 until McManus's death in 1954, making it one of the longest-lived strips in American newspaper history. This daily strip follows the familiar Jiggs-and-Maggie domestic comedy: a woman urges her reluctant husband to discourage an expensive tour, he reports success — then the punchline reverses everything when it emerges he talked her into buying a yacht instead. McManus's linework is elegant and economical: Art Nouveau wallpaper patterns, a chandelier rendered in a few strokes, expressive silhouettes. The strip exemplifies how newspaper comics — Sunday pages and dailies circulated through King Features Syndicate — established the visual grammar of sequential art: rectilinear panels, integrated speech balloons, and recurring characters whose personalities readers tracked across decades.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain