Polly and Her Pals — December 27, 1922

Four panels follow Pa's comic predicament: pressed to answer whether he's home for a visitor, he insists he's 'out,' gets scolded for telling fibs, then learns the caller is Cousin Lou — who knits him bedroom slippers every Christmas. The punchline lands as Pa, resigned, drafts a flattering reply letter praising baby blue as his favorite color. Cliff Sterrett's loose, rubbery figures and densely lettered speech balloons are characteristic of his style — expressive without virtuosity. *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and ran into the 1950s, part of the syndicated daily-strip ecosystem whose recurring casts, sequential panels, and balloon dialogue directly furnished the structural vocabulary that early comic-book publishers would repackage and sell as a new medium through the 1930s.