George McManus’ classic Bringing Up Father offered us several long-running toppers over the years, but before he settled down to a decade and a half run of Rosie’s Beau, followed by Snookums, he experimented with a couple other titles in the early days of the form.

Good Morning, Boss! was his second attempt at a topper, and had a really short run, from May 16 to June 6 1926; a mere four episodes. In each episode our hero, never named, tries to break out of his humdrum job into something more exciting and better-paying. In each attempt he finds that the grass is not so green when viewed close up. The concluding panel finds our man back at his desk.

McManus was a disciple of the ’empty-eyes’ school of cartooning, but for Good Morning, Boss he offered us a rare look at a character equipped with pupils.  Our hero looks perpetually surprised as a result, but maybe this was McManus depicting him as a ‘deer in the headlights’, as he most assuredly was.