Bringing Up Father — buf430124f

George McManus launched *Bringing Up Father* in 1913, running it continuously for decades and making Jiggs and Maggie two of the most recognized figures in American popular culture. This Sunday page follows Jiggs sneaking out with a judge friend after an evening at the theater, spending the night as a houseguest while Maggie snores, then waking to find his trousers raided of five hundred dollars — which Maggie promptly plans to spend before scolding him. McManus's draftsmanship is immediately recognizable: elegant Art Nouveau flourishes on interiors, women drawn with sinuous curves and towering hats, men in broad silhouette. The strip's tight panel-to-panel causality — setup, complication, reversal, punchline — codified the rhythms that would define both the newspaper page and, soon after, the comic book format itself.