Polly and Her Pals — 1922-09-11

Four panels titled *Now Ashur's Got a New Occupation* follow the round, mustachioed Ashur Perkins as he navigates a comic misunderstanding involving a bicycle. Polly and her father appear briefly in the opener; the punchline lands when a policeman discovers Ashur has no occupation — only to haul him off on the back of a police motorcycle, 'withdrawn from circulation for thirty days.' Sterrett's draftsmanship is precise yet rubbery, with bold ink pops and overlapping motion lines signaling collisions. *Polly and Her Pals*, syndicated from 1912, was among the earliest newspaper strips to develop a consistent ensemble cast and sustained visual wit across daily and Sunday formats — the serialized newspaper page being the direct ancestor of the comic book as a discrete printed form.