Polly and Her Pals — 1925-01-12

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912, making it one of the longest-running family strips of the early newspaper era. This four-panel daily shows Paw — the strip's true comic center, despite the title — so absorbed in a crossword puzzle that he ignores bedtime, muttering that he must find a Japanese word first. A child places tacks outside the door; a cat hits them with a shriek; Paw, startled, produces the very expletive the puzzle demanded. Sterrett's draftsmanship is precise and inventive: bold silhouetted doorframes, economical staging, and expressive balloon lettering drive the gag with clean efficiency. Newspaper dailies like this one codified the visual grammar — sequential panels, integrated speech balloons, recurring cast — that would directly scaffold the comic book format emerging in the 1930s.