Bringing Up Father — buf390702

Four panels follow Jiggs, the Irish-immigrant social climber created by George McManus, as he carries a tray of Maggie's good china past their baby. The infant says "Goo," grabs a plate, and smashes the entire set. Jiggs responds with resigned amusement, then phones the china shop to order an unbreakable replacement. McManus's ligne claire draftsmanship — rounded figures, ornate Art Nouveau backgrounds, immaculate brushwork — is fully on display. Launched in 1913 in the Hearst syndicate, Bringing Up Father ran in over 750 papers worldwide and helped standardize the daily strip's visual grammar: sequential panels, integrated speech balloons, and a fixed cast whose domestic conflicts reset each installment. Those syndicated dailies, collected and reprinted, directly seeded the commercial comic-book format of the late 1930s.