“Bringing Up Father” (July 28, 1942)
by George McManus (1884-1954) and Zeke Zekley (1915-2005)
23.25 x 5.75 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

In 1904, young George McManus was hired by Pulitzer’s New York World as a cartoonist. While he was there he created such strips as The Newlyweds, which comics historians consider the first family comic strip. In 1912, William Randolph Hearst hired McManus away to start a comic strip about a guy called Jiggs, a lower class man who came into a lot of money. With their new wealth, Maggie, Jiggs’ wife, wanted to enter the upper crust of society but Jiggs just wanted to hang out with his old friends at the local bar playing cards and pool and eat his simple favorite foods. This is the classic strip Bringing Up Father.

McManus had masterful line work with a strong deco feel to his designs. Over time, he developed the recurring motif of animating the background paintings in certain panels, and this is generally delightful.

The whimsy in the funny papers often sits in sharp contrast to the news of the day.

Earlier in July (July 4), the mass murder, by gassing, of Jews held at Auschwitz had begun. The Soviets had begun to press the Germans on the Eastern Front (Stalingrad) and the Italians at El Alamain (North Africa). On the 28thh, Stalin, seeking to reinforce the patriotic Soviet spirit, issued the famous Order 227. It’s key phrase “Not one step back!” would become a rallying cry throughout the rest of 1942 and into 1943.