Camera-ready comic art drawing for Bringing Up Father

This pen-and-ink drawing produced for the Bringing up Father comic strip shows Mother mentioning that she worries about Father and his absentmindedness. When she and Nora are at the matinee, Father takes a message for Mother. He doesn’t recall all the details about the message, and when Mother becomes angry about that he reveals that she was the one who had forgotten to meet someone for lunch earlier that day.

Frank Fletcher (1919- ) began his career in the advertising field. He also served as art director for the Pictorial Review and the Saturday Home Magazine, and provided artwork for popular comic books. Fletcher also became the artist for the Bringing Up Father comic strip after the death in 1954 of its creator, George McManus. Fletcher continued drawing the strip in the Sunday edition until 1984.

Bringing Up Father (1913-2000) featured an Irish immigrant named Jiggs; his wife, Maggie; and their two children Nora and Ethelbert (known as Sonny). The story usually revolved around Jiggs’s attempts to cope with his newfound wealth after receiving winnings from the Irish Sweepstakes. Much of the time Jiggs longed for his working-class friends, habits, and general lifestyle. Meanwhile Maggie, a social climber, had embraced her nouveau riche status and demanded that Jiggs do the same.

Currently not on view