Bringing Up Father — buf411012f

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* — running from 1913 to 2000 — follows Irish immigrant-turned-millionaire Jiggs and his social-climbing wife Maggie. This Sunday page turns on a classic confidence-scheme gag: Jiggs orchestrates a flash-mob of cronies to flood a failing cigar store, manufacture the appearance of booming business, and fool a prospective buyer. McManus draws the chaos in his signature style — elegantly inked figures, precise crosshatching, and Art Nouveau flourishes borrowed from his vaudeville-poster training. The panel sequence — establishing dialogue, street exterior, mob interior, pandemonium, comic aftermath — demonstrates the visual grammar newspaper strips codified before comic books existed. Along with *Mutt and Jeff* and *Krazy Kat*, *Bringing Up Father* proved that recurring characters sustained across daily panels could carry a narrative universe entirely their own.