Polly and Her Pals — "Pa Couldn't Qualify as a Referee"

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, and it ran for four decades — long enough for Sterrett to push its visual style toward near-abstraction. This 1922 daily shows Pa in court, called as a witness to a brawl; pressed by the judge to explain why he didn't aid the plaintiff, he confesses he didn't know which man *was* the plaintiff. Four tight horizontal panels carry the joke cleanly: the courtroom bench, the lawyer's challenge, the judge's exasperation, Pa's sheepish exit. Sterrett's brushwork is loose and confident, his figures rubbery. Strips like this one — syndicated nationwide, read by millions — established the recurring-character daily comic as a mass-culture institution before the comic book existed as a format.