From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — buf410906f
· September 7, 1941 (King Features Syndicate)

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* follows Jiggs and Maggie through a chaotic rural cabin vacation: the roof has caved in, a live moose hangs at the window, uninvited relatives flood in demanding dinner, and the quest for firewood ends with the vanity case reduced to kindling. McManus draws in bold, fluid brushwork — exaggerated silhouettes, crowded speech balloons, sight gags stacked panel to panel. Launched in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* was among the first strips to sustain a continuous cast across decades, refining the visual grammar — sequential panels, integrated balloon lettering, recurring domestic conflict — that Sunday newspaper pages exported directly into the first comic books of the late 1930s.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain