Bringing Up Father — buf390220

Four panels follow Jiggs, the social-climbing Irish immigrant created by George McManus, as he descends to check the furnace on a chilly night. Panel one: Jiggs at the door, muttering about the cold. Panel two: pure visual comedy — a black field exploding with white stars as he tumbles down the stairs, unseen. Panel three: dazed, he reaches a light switch, relieved he didn't fall further. Panel four: Maggie's brother deadpans that Jiggs looks like he sat on barbed wire. McManus's fluid Art Nouveau line, bold blacks, and precise speech balloons exemplify the daily newspaper strip's visual grammar — the same grammar that, reprinted and staple-bound in the 1930s, literally became the comic book.