Polly and Her Pals — 1922-08-25

Four panels, black ink on newsprint. Pa and a companion discuss the socialite Mr. Pure, who "only knows me when he feels like it." At the races the day before, Pure failed to acknowledge Pa — yet Pa saw him twice. The final panel delivers the title punchline: Pure was too drunk to notice anyone. Sterrett draws in a crisp, economical line; his characters wear boater hats and carry canes, placed against minimal beach scenery. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912, is among the earliest daily strips with a consistent cast. Sterrett would later push the strip toward bold geometric abstraction, making it a touchstone for historians tracing how newspaper comics invented sequential visual storytelling — the direct ancestor of the comic book form.