Polly and Her Pals — July 24, 1922

Four panels of rough water and dark comedy: a woman on shore frets that Pa went fishing with a friend; the next three panels follow Pa and a skipper through heaving waves — their dory nearly capsized — as Pa asks whether folks often drown in such small boats. The skipper's reply, "Only once!", lands the punchline. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, making it one of the longest-running newspaper strips of its era. His draftsmanship grew increasingly bold and geometrically inventive through the 1920s — dynamic wave forms here already show his characteristic weight and rhythm. Daily newspaper strips like this one, syndicated nationally, supplied the page format, panel sequence, and speech-balloon conventions that direct-print comic books would simply bind and sell from the late 1930s onward.