Bringing Up Father — buf400927

Four panels, black-and-white ink: Jiggs sits at a desk writing checks while waiting for Maggie to finish dressing; the lamp blows out; in darkness he calls her in for light; she enters in full glamorous evening regalia, jewels blazing, radiating cartoon luminescence — and he simply says, *Thanks.* George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it until his death in 1954. His line was precise and decorative, influenced by Art Nouveau, his figures elegant where contemporaries were crude. McManus inherited the visual grammar pioneered by Outcault and Dirks — recurring cast, sequential panels, speech balloons — the same grammar that, when newspaper strips were reprinted and bound in the 1930s, became the comic book.