Polly and Her Pals — 1925-02-04

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Journal, and by 1925 it had become one of the most visually inventive strips in American syndication. This four-panel daily turns on a domestic reunion: Polly has returned from a visit, and the large, good-natured Sammy is quizzed whether he missed her. The gag builds panel by panel — warmth, then comic exaggeration, then a physical pratfall as Sammy overplays his affection and gets swatted off-panel. Sterrett's bold brushwork, compressed figures, and expressive silhouettes show how newspaper dailies were already forging the visual grammar — panel sequence, speech balloons, recurring cast — that would directly seed the comic book form two decades later.