Polly and Her Pals — 1922-06-08

Four panels track a domestic comedy: a suitor sits nervously in the parlor while Paw is summoned by whisper to the doorway, then learns that Pete intends to propose to Polly — only to reveal he first asked whether the family was "pleasant people t'live with," earning an immediate pratfall. Sterrett's draftsmanship is loose and kinetic, faces rubbery, bodies caught mid-gesture. *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and ran for decades, making it one of the longest-lived American comic strips. Sterrett pioneered bold graphic patterning and near-abstract backgrounds years before the wider cartooning world caught up. These syndicated daily strips — reproduced on cheap newsprint, collected and stapled by readers — directly seeded the physical format that became the comic book.