Bringing Up Father — buf400823

Four panels, no dialogue after the opener: Jiggs slumps in his armchair declaring he feels gloomy—"it seems to be in the air"—then turns puzzled toward something off-panel, leans forward to examine what appears to be a book or tablet, and recoils with a sharp "Ah!" The gag is pure pantomime after panel one, trusting George McManus's fluid ink line to carry the timing. McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913 and ran it for decades, making Jiggs and Maggie among the most recognized figures in American popular culture. Sunday pages and daily strips like this one are the direct ancestors of the comic book: they standardized the panel grid, the speech balloon, and the recurring cast that readers followed week after week.