From the exhibition
Bringing Up Father — Omaha Daily Bee, June 7, 1914
· June 7, 1914

George McManus's *Bringing Up Father* runs across the top of this Sunday page in six horizontal panels, following the perennial domestic war between Jiggs — the Irish immigrant bricklayer turned nouveau-riche — and his socially ambitious wife Maggie. The strip's gag turns on Jiggs's hapless attempt to slip out of the house while Maggie schemes to keep up appearances; a rolling-pin threat lands in the final panel. McManus's line is confident and clean: Art Nouveau flourishes in the wallpaper and dresses, characters rendered in bold outline with minimal crosshatching. First syndicated in 1913, *Bringing Up Father* helped establish the recurring-character Sunday strip as popular literature. These Sunday pages — collected, cut, and stitched together — are the direct precursor of the comic book format.
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