Polly and Her Pals — "Louder, Please!"

A four-panel daily strip by Cliff Sterrett, signed and dated May 1922. In the first panel two women gossip on a sofa while a figure snores loudly nearby, rendered in looping *bzz* sound lines. Middle panels show a cat-like character roused by the noise, exchanging bewildered question marks with another figure outside a door. The final two panels deliver the gag: a character complains the gossiping women are "frightfully annoying," while the hard-of-hearing Paw tops it with "I couldn't hear a word of it!" Sterrett's draftsmanship — fluid crosshatching, expressive silhouettes, rhythmic panel pacing — exemplifies the newspaper daily strip as a precision comic form. Launched in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* pioneered the recurring domestic ensemble that would become the template for the first anthology comic books of the 1930s.