Bringing Up Father — buf401221

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by 1940 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide — Jiggs the bricklayer-turned-millionaire and his socially ambitious wife Maggie among the most recognized figures in print. This daily strip moves through five panels: Jiggs mutters about a missing milk bottle, a woman named Dora is scolded for arguing, a second woman protests the noise, and a third voice — off-panel — silences everyone with magnificent exasperation. McManus's draftsmanship is fluid and assured: rounded, expressive figures set against confident brushwork and clean lettering. His speech-balloon placement guides the eye left to right with no ambiguity. Strips like this one — syndicated dailies reproduced on newsprint — are the direct ancestors of the comic book, establishing the sequential visual grammar that every subsequent medium inherited.