Bringing Up Father — buf401214

Four panels: a child hurls dishes in the air shouting *Wheee* while a harried man complains he wishes she'd leave; a knock at the door brings her mother, who gushes about what a *pleasant little visitor* the girl has been; the man bites his tongue and echoes the compliment; the mother whisks the child away. George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it continuously for decades — one of the longest-lived strips in syndication. McManus's clean ink line, ornate Art Nouveau backgrounds, and precisely timed panel cuts made it a template for domestic comedy. The Sunday page format these strips inhabited directly seeded the first comic books, which were simply reprinted newspaper pages folded into pamphlet form.