Polly and Her Pals — c. 1922

Four panels follow Pa, top-hatted and exasperated, waiting at the foot of the stairs while Polly finishes dressing. He cajoles — *"Per-ty, love o' Pete! Polly, shake a laig!"* — gets swatted away, and finally Polly emerges in full evening regalia, airily informing him she said she'd be ready in a minute. Clifford Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, making it one of the earliest strips built around a recurring family ensemble rather than a single clown figure. Its clean pen-line, expressive silhouettes, and gag-per-panel rhythm directly shaped the visual grammar that daily syndication exported nationwide — the same compressed sequential storytelling that anthology reprints would soon bind into the first comic books.