Born in St. Louis, Missouri, of Irish parents, McManus had an innate gift for drawing and a sense of humor. He recalled an incident when he was in high school: "My teacher sent home to my parents a picture I had drawn of a classmate named Sweeney. \'This is what your boy has been doing,\' the teacher wrote, icily. I laid the note in Pop\'s lap and headed wearily for the woodshed. But Pop, instead, put on his hat and coat and went to the editor of The Republican. He showed [my drawing of] Sweeney to the editor. Next day I had a job on The Republican at $5 a week—as an errand boy."\n', '

At The Republican, he created his first comic strip, Alma and Oliver. In 1904, after winning $3000 at the racetrack, he went to New York City and a job with the prestigious New York World, where he worked on several short-lived comic strips, including Snoozer, The Merry Marcelene, Ready Money Ladies, Cheerful Charlie, Nibsby the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland, Panhandle Pete and Let George Do It.\n', '

In 1904, McManus created the first American family comic strip, The Newlyweds, about an elegant young couple and their baby Snookums. The popularity of the strip prompted the management of The New York American to invite McManus to work for their newspaper, which he did from 1912 on. Renaming The Newlyweds as Their Only Child, he continued that strip and began other daily strips: Rosie\'s Beau, Love Affairs of a Mutton Head, Spareribs And Gravy and Bringing Up Father.\n', '

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