Polly and Her Pals — 1922-04-08

Four panels, titled *It Was Fifty-Fifty All Around*. A loud BOOM sends a stout woman sprawling; her husband stands watching while she demands he help her up — "If you was half a man you'd help me up!" His retort lands in the final panel with a PLOP: "If you was half a woman I would!" Sterrett's draftsmanship is confident and loose, with expressive ink blacks and physical comedy rooted in domestic sparring. Launched in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* was among the earliest strips to develop recurring ensemble characters across daily and Sunday pages — the very format, with its sequenced panels and speech balloons, that directly seeded the comic book form codified in the 1930s.