Bringing Up Father — 9 April 1925

George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, and by 1925 it ran in hundreds of papers worldwide, making Jiggs and Maggie among the most recognised figures in print. This four-panel daily shows Jiggs relieved that a visitor has arrived to interrupt Maggie's piano playing — only to discover the caller has brought a petition, signed by every tenant in the building, objecting to the noise. The final panel's punch: Jiggs hasn't signed it. McManus draws in a crisp, elegantly economical line, his characters' rounded silhouettes and expressive postures doing the work that dialogue barely needs. Newspaper dailies like this one, syndicated nationally and collected into early reprint pamphlets, directly seeded the comic-book format — same rectangular panels, same speech balloons, same recurring cast returning each day.