Bringing Up Father — buf400820

Four panels follow Jiggs, George McManus's perpetually hen-pecked Irish-American social climber in top hat and checked suit, as he grumbles about failing to extract ten dollars from his wife Maggie for a clam bake. Walking through a darkly cross-hatched street tunnel, a passerby warns him the light is poor; emerging into daylight, a bystander marvels at his cane and asks how he got it; Jiggs grins that twenty dollars bought him an early departure from the bake — outwitting Maggie after all. McManus's draftsmanship is elegant: Art Nouveau curves, precise brushwork, and expressive balloon lettering. *Bringing Up Father*, syndicated from 1913, was among the first strips reprinted in collected pamphlet form — the direct ancestor of the comic book format.