Polly and Her Pals — "And There Must Have Been a Password"

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912, making it one of the longest-running daily strips of the early newspaper comic era. This four-panel daily follows Ashur Uriah Perkins — Polly's bumbling, mustachioed father — as he approaches what appears to be a children's camp sentry post. Challenged with "Who goes there?", he cannot remember the password, and the pint-sized guard refuses to help, insisting he is "a sentry, not an information bureau." The gag turns on a single misunderstanding sustained cleanly across four beats. Sterrett's confident crosshatching, expressive silhouettes, and precisely lettered balloons show the daily strip format already fully mature — compressed storytelling that would directly inform the comic book page format codified two decades later.