ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Bringing Up Father — buf401016

· October 16, c. 1940 (King Features Syndicate)

Bringing Up Father — buf401016
George McManus's long-running daily strip follows Jiggs, a nouveau-riche Irishman perpetually caught between saloon-and-corned-beef comfort and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. In this four-panel gag, Jiggs steels himself outside with two swallows of nerve tonic before entering the house, calls out for the household, and is immediately bowled over by a chaos of servants, dogs, and his wife lunging toward him — the butler crying "Yes, Master!" while Jiggs flies backward. McManus's draftsmanship is elegant and precise: Art Nouveau architectural ornament, crisp crosshatching, and expressive silhouettes. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* ran for decades and helped codify the domestic-comedy strip form — the recurring cast, sequential panel rhythm, and balloon-driven timing that early comic-book editors would directly repackage as the medium's foundation.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain