Bringing Up Father — buf410823

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, and by the 1940s its Sunday pages had refined the slapstick grammar he'd been perfecting for three decades. This ten-panel page follows Jiggs — top hat, cigar, tuxedo — who has stolen away to a high steel-girder perch above the city for some peace and quiet, only to be chased, grabbed, and physically launched into space by his wife Maggie. The chase tumbles across rooftop scaffolding in panels that use overlapping motion lines, split-level staging, and a dream-frame resolution: the whole ordeal was Jiggs asleep on a bedpost. McManus's brushwork — sinuous Art Nouveau curves against sharp architectural geometry — was among the most elegant in syndicated strips, influencing a generation of cartoonists who learned visual storytelling from the Sunday page before the comic book existed as a form.