Bringing Up Father — buf401008

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* follows Jiggs, a newly wealthy Irish-American, perpetually outwitted by domestic life. In this four-panel daily strip, Jiggs experiments with a patent nerve tonic, accidentally spills it on the household cat, and watches the animal rocket skyward in a shower of stars — a classic slapstick escalation. The finale delivers the punch: a visitor reports the frenzied cat has chased four dogs *and* a policeman down the street while wearing the officer's hat. McManus's bold ink line, expressive star-burst action marks, and starred speech balloons exemplify the visual shorthand newspaper strip artists codified from the 1900s onward — the very grammar of panels, recurring characters, and sequential gags that directly seeded the comic-book format.