Polly and Her Pals — 1922-07-03

A four-panel daily strip in which Pa spots Polly and a rival on the beach. A stout, parasol-toting woman sneers at Polly's knees — *"Her knees ain't knobby!"* — while Pa, pipe in mouth, delivers the punchline from behind a rock: *"They're as puffick a pair as ever I see, Susie!"* Sterrett's draftsmanship is clean and economical; the women's fashionable beach dress contrasts with Pa's comic silhouette. Launched in 1912 for the New York *Evening Telegram*, *Polly and Her Pals* was among the first newspaper strips built around a recurring domestic cast and zippy dialogue balloons — formal devices that daily strips handed directly to the first comic book compilers of the 1930s, who simply reprinted these pages and called them a new medium.