Bringing Up Father — buf390317

Four panels follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber in top hat and spats, and a round-faced younger man in a scheme involving a dresser dragged off a lounge. Jiggs explains the ruse in panel one; panel two shows the dresser tipping dramatically; panel three has the accomplice tiptoeing back toward a sofa; panel four ends with a startled "EEK!" and a sleeping figure mid-snore — the gag landing on discovery rather than success. George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, and its crisp ink line, expressive silhouettes, and integrated speech balloons became a template studied worldwide. The daily strip — syndicated across hundreds of papers — was precisely the recyclable, page-filling format that printers would soon gather into pamphlets and sell as comic books.