Polly and Her Pals — "The Duke's Mistake, of Course"

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912, was among the earliest newspaper strips to build its comedy around a recurring domestic ensemble rather than a single protagonist. This three-panel daily follows a pompous Duke ushered into the sitting room to wait for "Miss Perkins," only to be flattened — sound effect: KLINK! — by an unseen household mishap before she descends the stairs. Sterrett's draftsmanship is already fluid: exaggerated postures, economical backgrounds, and speech balloons pacing the gag with real timing. Strips like this one fed directly into the first comic-book reprints of the 1930s, proving that sequential panel storytelling, invented on newsprint, was a portable, sellable art form.