Bringing Up Father — July 13, 1925

Four panels track Jiggs, the Irish-American social climber, sweating at home in his undershirt and insisting he is too hot to go out — then marveling that women dress lightly enough to manage the heat — then wondering aloud how wife Maggie and their daughter are coping. The final panel delivers the punch: both women appear swathed head-to-toe in enormous fur-trimmed finery, leaving Jiggs gaping at a question mark. McManus's draftsmanship is extravagant, his brushwork rich with crosshatching and decorative patterning on the women's costumes. Launched in 1913, Bringing Up Father ran for decades in hundreds of papers worldwide, and its recurring cast, consistent visual characterization, and daily panel rhythm helped establish the template that early comic-book anthologies — reprinting exactly these strips — directly inherited.