Polly and Her Pals — March 27, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (1912–1958) follows the domestic comedy of Pa, Polly, and an eccentric household. In this daily, Pa sneaks past Polly announcing he's off to the movies, then conspiratorially recruits the family's little ragamuffin companion into silence — confessing he's 'dead broke' and needs 'a coupla bucks.' The child solemnly pledges discretion. Sterrett's loose, expressive linework — rubbery figures, energetic cross-hatching, inventive staging — made *Polly* one of the most visually adventurous strips of its era. Newspaper comic strips like this one are the direct ancestor of the comic book: the recurring cast, sequential panels, and speech balloons pioneered here migrated wholesale into the anthology comic books of the 1930s.