Bringing Up Father — 1929-07-18

George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, making it one of the longest-running strips in American newspaper history. Four daily panels follow Jiggs, a nouveau-riche Irishman in top hat and checked suit, dodging domestic obligations: here he schemes to escape a Board of Governors meeting, recycles a flimsy excuse his wife Maggie already knows, then discovers Maggie herself wants opera tickets he forgot to buy. McManus's line work is elegant — Art Nouveau curves borrowed from his admiration of Alphonse Mucha — set against sharp comedy timing built entirely through sequential panels and speech balloons. Strips like this one, syndicated daily to millions, established the visual grammar — panel borders, integrated dialogue, recurring cast — that King Features and its rivals handed wholesale to the first comic-book publishers of the 1930s.