Polly and Her Pals — 1922-08-07

Four panels set in a theatre box: two women and a man watch a performance, exchanging rapid-fire remarks about why poor Polly can't use her opera glasses — she forgot to wear her rings, so the glasses won't fit over her fingers. Cliff Sterrett's draftsmanship is confident and economical; the floral-trimmed box rail anchors every panel while the characters' exaggerated expressions carry the comedy. Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 and developed it into one of the most visually inventive strips of the era, its later Sunday pages pushing toward near-abstract patterning. Daily and Sunday newspaper strips like this one are the direct ancestors of the comic book: the recurring cast, sequential panels, and speech-balloon grammar that would define an entire medium were refined right here, in ink on newsprint.