Polly and Her Pals — "Neewah Proves a Traitor to Paw"

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (NEA/King Features, 1912–1958) is one of the longest-running American newspaper comic strips and a cornerstone of the art form's visual vocabulary. This daily strip follows the recurring domestic triangle of Paw, flapper daughter Polly, and her friend Neewah. Across six panels, Paw tries to resist a nature-camp trip to the Adirondacks while the women successively defect to the other side — Neewah's betrayal landing the punchline. Sterrett's ink work is confident and fluid: exaggerated silhouettes, feathered costumes rendered in bold blacks, and expressive posture carry the comedy where dialogue falters. His formal innovations — tight sequential staging, speech balloons integrated into composition — helped establish the visual grammar that daily comic strips handed directly to the first comic books of the 1930s.