Bringing Up Father — buf401028

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by 1940 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide — a daily and Sunday fixture that helped establish the recurring-character strip as a commercial institution. This four-panel daily follows Jiggs, the nouveau-riche Irish immigrant husband, in one of his characteristic reversals: having toughened himself on a nerve tonic, he anticipates battle with his imperious wife Maggie — only to find her inexplicably tender, fetching his pipe and slippers. The final panel's question mark hanging over his baffled head is pure McManus economy. His ligne claire draftsmanship, decorative floral blacks, and precisely lettered balloons influenced a generation of cartoonists. Strips like this one — syndicated daily columns reproduced en masse — were the direct material reprinted to create the first comic books of the 1930s.