Polly and Her Pals — 1922-06-14

This four-panel daily strip opens with Paw Perkins laughing uproariously at son Percy's pun, only to be called a hypocrite by Percy for mocking the very jokes he laughs at. Paw's defense — he laughs "in self defence," and if you don't laugh, "the idiot allus explains 'em" — lands as the punchline. Sterrett's thick ink lines, rubbery figures, and phonetic dialect ("Kin you," "Daingone it") are hallmarks of the Hearst syndicate daily format he helped perfect. Launched in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* pioneered bold graphic distortion and recurring domestic character types that would directly inform the visual grammar comic books inherited from the newspaper page.