Bringing Up Father — buf371213

Four daily panels by George McManus follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber in top hat and checked jacket, as he sneaks out for a night at the Opera House — where a showgirl revue advertises "60 Girls, Tonight Only" — while telling his wife Maggie he has a lodge meeting. Maggie, at right, suspects exactly what he's up to. McManus's line work is fluid and decorative, his lettered speech balloons integral to the panel architecture. Bringing Up Father, syndicated from 1913, was among the first strips to reach a global audience and helped codify the daily comic's grammar: recurring cast, sequential panels, punch-line close. That grammar migrated directly into the comic book format that emerged in the 1930s.