Polly and Her Pals — "The Feeling Is Mutual, It Seems"

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (1912–1958) is one of the longest-running and most visually inventive strips in American newspaper history. This four-panel daily follows Pa's poolside complaint to a hotel manager about being seated near the dreaded Hawkinses — only for the final panel to reveal the Hawkinses had already lodged the identical complaint. Sterrett renders the characters in loose, rubbery linework, with expressive posture carrying as much comedy as the dialogue. The strip's spoken vernacular — "I didn't hafta tell him, ole top!" — typifies the era's transcribed speech rhythms. Newspaper dailies like this one, syndicated nationally, directly seeded the anthology reprint format that became the comic book as a distinct medium in the 1930s.