Polly and Her Pals — "Tomorrow's the Day"

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912, and by 1925 it had evolved into one of the most visually inventive strips in American newspapers. This four-panel daily centers on Paw Perkins, the rotund, checkered-suited patriarch, who has a parlor trick he plans to debut at a party. Polly wheedles him to reveal it early; Maw negotiates a private preview "t'morry"; the final panel delivers a deadpan triple repetition of "Till t'morry" — a pure timing gag executed through speech balloons alone. Sterrett's bold zigzag upholstery and lamp silhouettes push toward near-abstraction, anticipating the cubist flourishes that would define his late work. Daily strips like this one — syndicated nationwide, cut and sometimes pasted by readers — were the direct material ancestors of the comic book format.