Bringing Up Father — buf400917

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by 1940 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide. This four-panel daily strip follows Jiggs—the Irish immigrant turned reluctant millionaire—lost at sea with his companions. The gag turns on obliviousness: while Jiggs complains they'll never sight land, the boat has been docked for an hour. McManus's clean brushwork, exaggerated profiles, and confident ink economy are on full display; his speech balloons are integrated naturally into each panel's composition. Strips like this one were the direct progenitors of the comic book format: publishers began reprinting Sunday pages in pamphlet form in the early 1930s, and the recurring cast, sequential panels, and balloon dialogue McManus helped standardize became the grammar every comic book that followed would inherit.