Polly and Her Pals — January 31, 1922

Four panels titled *It Was a Pleasure They All Missed*. Two bystanders spot a man in theatrical costume; one whispers that he's the lead in last night's new play. The costumed figure, overhearing, declares the crowd hissed him — only to be corrected: there *was* no crowd. Sterrett's crosshatched linework, expressive rubber-limbed figures, and overlapping speech balloons show the daily strip at full command of its own grammar. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912 for the Hearst syndicate, was among the first strips to develop a stable cast across years of continuity. Daily newspaper strips like this one were the direct seedbed of the comic book: their panel sequences, recurring characters, and balloon-driven dialogue gave later anthology reprint volumes — and eventually original comic books — their entire visual language.