Bringing Up Father — buf371113

Four panels by George McManus show two spotted-pajama burglars methodically robbing a household while a fainting woman alerts her husband offscreen. The thieves collect silverware, demand compliance at gunpoint, and exit with their haul — only for the final panel to break the fourth wall entirely: one burglar faces a television set broadcasting a cliffhanger card reading "This great thrilling robber serial will continue at this same time next week." McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913 for King Features Syndicate, running it until his death in 1954. His round, ink-heavy figures and fluid balloon placement influenced a generation of cartoonists. Daily newspaper strips like this one — syndicated to hundreds of papers simultaneously — supplied both the audience and the page-layout conventions that early comic-book publishers directly repackaged beginning in 1933.