Bringing Up Father — buf401216

Four panels follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant-made-good, as his secretary reports a persistent book agent. Jiggs, exasperated, insists he won't see any book agents — then a sharp-hatted woman agent pushes through anyway, prompting a large question mark above Jiggs's head; the final panel shows him buried under an avalanche of books, ruefully conceding he should have kept some in the office. McManus's line is elegant and assured: bold ink contours, expressive silhouettes, and speech balloons that drive comic timing with precision. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the first strips to sustain a recurring cast across decades, helping establish the visual grammar — panel sequencing, balloon placement, character consistency — that Sunday newspaper pages exported directly into the first comic books of the late 1930s.