Bringing Up Father

  “Bringing Up Father” by George McManus illustrates the story of Jiggs and his wife Maggie adapting to life in high society America (1913) after coming into a large sum of money. Jiggs, a working class Irishman, finds himself in a propitious position when he wins the lottery worth a million dollars. While his wife, daughter Nora and son try to change their societal image to match their newly acquired wealth, Jiggs remains in his uninhibited naturalness. In the comic, we constantly see Jiggs being persuaded into situations like sit down dinners and going to the opera. While Maggie tries to schmooze and win over their fellow aristocrats with sophistication, Jiggs is the one to muddle the waters incorporating his former lifestyle.

This strip represents Jiggs' lake of concern for anyone Maggie wants him to meet.
Maggie on the other hand is embarrassed and (by her thought bubble, feels cheap.

In this strip, we see Jiggs and his family attending an opera. While Maggie and Nora critic their peers below, Jiggs' main concern is getting a beer. Afterwards, when Maggie and Nora are ashamed, he is unaware of why.

  Besides moving to Fifth Avenue and shaving off his beard, Jiggs is the same quintessential Jiggs. In most instances, Jiggs’ encounters his old friends at the same time Maggie is trying to introduce him to important figures she would like to be associated with. During these times, the high society figure often excuses him or herself as Jiggs offers his old pal to a game of poker and some beer. Although Maggie tries to tirelessly reform him, Jiggs always keeps his vernacular slang and blue-collar heart. Most of the time we see Jiggs struggling to escape Maggie’s different plans. He goes to extremes for example, lowering a bucket down to his butler in order to get some beer and corned beef.

Maggie is unimpressed and disgusted when Jiggs sees an old friend on the street and goes on to introduce him to one of the high society ladies she'd like to be associated with.

Jiggs gets his butler to help him get some alcohol when a minister is at the house for Maggie and Nora's help to abolish liquer sales. As he lowers the bucket, Maggie. Nora and the minister are watching out the window.

  George McManus already having created notable comic strips (Newsboy in Funny Fairyland, Let George Do It, The Newlyweds, etc.) for Joseph Pultizer’s New York World, received his chance at fame with “Bringing Up Father” after being picked up by William Randolph Hearst for the Journal American. Although beginning the comic in 1913, McManus had introduced the characters Maggie and Jiggs into previous works. McManus while creating the strip said he was inspired by a play he attended in his childhood. The play,

“‘The Rising Generation’, featured a poker game scene during which, for 20 minutes each night, the actors played a real game of poker for real stakes and ad-libbed throughout. One of the poker players, the hero of the piece played by William Barry, was a little Irish laborer who’d struck it rich and moved to Fifth Avenue (Lindenblatt, pg. 7)”.

Maggie catching Jiggs in a poker game with his old working class friends.

This inspiration took McManus to become known as one of the most legendary comic artists of all time.  McManus ran the strip from 1913 all the way to his death in 1954. During those years, he hired Zeke Zekley as an assistant in the mid 1930’s. After McManus’ passing a variety of artists took over the strip until it appeared for the last time on May 28, 2000. In all, the strip ran for 87 years and became the 3^rd longest running comic strip of all time. 

      The comic strips years I chose to focus on from “Bringing Up Father” were 1913-1914 and 1939-1940. Analyzing the strip utilizing Scott McClouds “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” it is obvious that the comic endlessly is run in a “scene to scene” format. From the first year to the very last year of “Bringing Up Father” McManus doesn’t veer away from using an “interdependent” approach between his dialogue and images. What does seem to change over time is the panels, which tend to get larger in size. This of course is not always, as most of the panels (especially the early years) all regularly follow the same format. Also, in the first year of the comic, a gutter is never seen. All of the panels border one another condensing the strip. The strip over the years also gets longer. In colored strips, instead of 4-5 panels, McManus will use up to 12. This occurs in some of the continued black and white strips also.

No Gutter

Gutter

      McManus’ style aesthetically is run on more of cartoon spectrum. The actions of his characters are emphasized with symbols. When Jigs walks in a pole after not paying attention as woman passes by, stars and bells appear before his head indicating he hit the pole hard. It creates more comedy than what would have been if the image just shown Jiggs walking into the pole. Distinctively McManus applies a masking effect with his characters. Because of this effect and because of the strips theme, Jiggs is so relatable. Viewers can understand why he acts the way he does in response to the world around him. This style was so successful and ran along with the comic for 87 years. What is also interesting to see is how McManus kept up with the fashions in contemporary life along with his comic strip. Maggie and Nora's cloths change with the fads of the time period.

Jiggs walking into a pole.

      Personally I feel the strip as a whole works perfectly and I can’t criticize anything negatively. Even down to the little details like Maggie being taller than Jiggs. Since Maggie seems to always be wearing Jiggs down and always reprimanding him as if a mother would, it is artistically and comically appropriate. What I think is also successful is Jiggs and Maggie (along with all the older characters in the book) have more of a cartoon quality about them. Characters that are younger are depicted more realistically for example, Jiggs’ daughter. 

Comparison of Old/Young characterr

Maggies Height in comparison to Jiggs

The first year of the strip was completely drawn in black and white. In the comics created from 1939-1940 there is some color included. In the colored ones, the viewer can distinguish a clear foreground, middle ground and background. This was also something beneficial to the viewer since there was some sort of platform to what “Bringing Up Father’s world would look like to Jiggs. The story also didn’t remain in one setting. The characters traveled to places like Venice even in the first year of the strip. The viewer could even make out accents to the foreign characters given the way their dialogue was written.

Jiggs in Venice, Italy

Jiggs in Color

       Overall “Bringing Up Father” is extremely dynamic and it is no wonder why it has reached international fame. Contemporarily, it has reached notoriety where animated movies, radio shows and silent movies have been created in replication of it. Since its publication, reining in “the golden age of comics” “Bringing Up Father” has inspired a countless amount of artists. McManus’ impact on the comic world has spanned generations and his legacy will easily go down as one of the all time greats.

George McManus dressed as his iconic character Jiggs

Sources:

Lindenblatt, Jeffrey, ed. George McManus's Bringing Up Father. NewYork: NBM, n.d. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.Print.

McManus, George. Bringing Up Father: From See to Shining Sea. SanDiego: IDW, 2009. Print.