Polly and Her Pals — 1922-06-27

A suitor asks Polly's father for her hand; told the old man is having one of his "deaf spells," the young man shouts *"I DO!"* in response to *"You wish to marry my daughter, do you?"* — whereupon Pa's mouth opens so wide his head vanishes behind it. The final panel delivers the punchline: *"Wal, would you mind shuttin' your mouth so I kin see who y'are?"* Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 and ran it until 1958, making it one of the longest-lived newspaper strips. His draftsmanship grew increasingly geometric and abstract through the 1920s, influencing a generation of cartoonists. These syndicated daily strips — alongside Sunday pages by McManus, McCay, and Fisher — established the sequential panel, the speech balloon, and the recurring cast as the foundational grammar of what would become the comic book.