Bringing Up Father — buf390425

George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, and it ran for decades as one of America's most widely syndicated newspaper strips. This three-panel daily follows Jiggs, the nouveau-riche Irish immigrant, and his imperious wife Maggie. Here, Maggie reads a telegram announcing their son Sonny has become the father of a six-pound baby boy; Jiggs swells with pride — then freezes when the arithmetic lands: he is now a grandfather. McManus's line work is elegant and assured, his figures rounded and expressive, his interiors suggesting opulent domestic comfort. Speech balloons flow naturally through each panel, the joke built entirely through timing and character reaction — exactly the visual grammar that newspaper comic strips invented and the earliest comic books simply reprinted.