Bringing Up Father — buf401026

George McManus launched Bringing Up Father in 1913, making it one of the longest-running strips in American newspaper history and a direct ancestor of the comic book. This daily strip unfolds across four panels: Maggie learns her brother Danny is pushing a plow and carrying a horse under his arm; her husband Jiggs smugly announces he sold Danny the horse and plow to cure his nerve-tonic obsession; then a phone call reveals Danny bought a bigger plow and has already plowed up the sidewalk — sending Maggie into explosive fury, objects flying. McManus's clean ink line, expressive silhouettes, and rapid-fire balloon dialogue exemplify the visual grammar — sequential panels, recurring domestic characters, physical comedy punctuated by flying crockery — that newspaper comic artists invented and that early comic books simply reprinted and eventually inherited.