Bringing Up Father — buf400926

Four panels track the domestic sparring between Jiggs and an unseen household schemer. In the first panel Jiggs, seated and fuming, locks the lounge to keep Maggie's freeloading brother out. The middle panels show him smugly predicting the brother will next raid the icebox — so he has fitted it with a padlock. The final panel delivers the gag: the entire icebox has simply been carried off. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and its clean brushwork, expressive silhouettes, and locked-room sight gags influenced generations of cartoonists. Daily and Sunday newspaper strips like this one were the direct precursors of the comic book, establishing the panel grid, speech balloon, and recurring cast that define sequential art.