Polly and Her Pals — 1922-04-21

Four panels follow Paw, Polly's curmudgeonly father, as he reluctantly agrees to buy a chauffeur's suit to satisfy his daughter. He enters a men's clothing shop, haggles with a salesman, and is handed off to a subordinate named Smita to be fitted — the joke landing on Paw's dignity being managed rather than indulged. Sterrett's line work is confident and economical: exaggerated postures, cluttered speech balloons, and brisk panel transitions already fluent in the visual shorthand he helped standardize. Launched in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* was among the earliest newspaper strips to develop a stable cast across years of daily continuity, contributing directly to the recurring-character model that shaped both the syndicated page and, eventually, the comic book format.