Polly and Her Pals — November 27, 1922

Four panels of domestic conspiracy: Ma asks how to solve 'this mystery'; Pa's daughter offers to ask him directly if Ma swears secrecy. The promise ritual — 'cross yer heart an' hope t'choke?' — ends with Ma fainting dead away at the actual secret, rendered in Sterrett's kinetic shorthand of asterisks and motion lines. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912, and by the early 1920s its draftsmanship had grown startlingly bold — thick ink, tilted floors, figures built from bold curves. These syndicated daily strips were the direct raw material of the comic book form: recurring cast, sequential panels, speech balloons carrying all dramatic weight. Sterrett's visual invention influenced a generation of cartoonists who would later define American comics entirely.