Bringing Up Father — buf391209

Four panels follow the recurring McManus household trio: a curly-haired young woman and her beau agree on an auto trip to Toledo, Erie, and Pittsburgh; they recruit Father to outvote Mother, who insists on train travel; Father cheerfully sides with the auto faction — until the final panel, where a question mark hangs in the air as someone notes that Maggie (the formidable matriarch, offpanel) remains unconvinced. George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, running it until his death in 1954. Its clean ink line, architectural panel borders, and expressive balloon lettering helped codify the daily comic strip as a distinct narrative form — the direct ancestor of the comic book page that would crystallize in 1938.