Polly and Her Pals — Daily Strip

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* daily opens with a letter from Polly introducing Percy to her father Sambo: Percy, she writes, 'seems to be a hard worker.' Three panels test the claim — Sambo asks, Percy deflects ('Naw!'), and the final panel shows Percy apparently hurling books in every direction, deadpanning 'Seeming to!' Sterrett's linework is loose and kinetic, with expressive figure poses carrying the timing. Launched as a Sunday page in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* grew into one of the most formally inventive strips of its era; Sterrett later pushed Art Deco abstraction into his Sunday layouts, influencing generations of cartoonists. These newspaper dailies — economical four-panel gag strips — formed the direct commercial and artistic pipeline into the first comic book reprints of the 1930s.