Polly and Her Pals — 1922-12-02

Four daily-strip panels follow a fast domestic comedy: a woman asks a seated man not for posies but for shoes, while a second character hushes her — Uncle, a stock-market magnate, is at his ticker. Panels two and three show the ticker spooling out tape as Uncle exults, "Goin' up, goin' up!" — then pauses with a suspicious "Hmm." Panel four delivers the punchline in a crash of debris as the market reverses and Uncle tumbles. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram; its bold black linework, syncopated panel rhythm, and character-driven gags made it one of the most formally inventive strips of its era, directly shaping the visual grammar that newspaper syndicates would carry into the first comic-book reprints of the 1930s.