Bringing Up Father — 1925-09-21

George McManus's Bringing Up Father follows Jiggs, a nouveau-riche Irishman forever henpecked by his social-climbing wife Maggie. In this four-panel daily, Jiggs gloats that Maggie's week-long trip to the country means freedom — until she rattles off a punishing list of chores: cut the grass, paint the garage, clean the cellar, pay the bills. He asks, deadpan, "Is that all?" She gone, he watches her depart with relief — then immediately slumps, muttering he feels "blue an' lonesome." McManus drew his strips with elegant Art Nouveau linework, ornate backgrounds, and expressive silhouettes. Launched in 1913 and syndicated globally, Bringing Up Father exemplifies how newspaper comic strips — daily panels, recurring characters, speech balloons — directly invented the visual and narrative language that early comic books would inherit wholesale.