Polly and Her Pals — 1925-02-25

In four compact panels, a suitor named Peakie fields a pointed interrogation from Aunt Maggie about his intentions toward Maggie, while Pa lurks nearby. Peakie's answer — that his intentions are indeed serious: seriously aimed at escaping her clutches by any means necessary — lands as the punchline. Sterrett draws in a loose, rubbery style, with expressive question marks floating above characters' heads and bodies that contort for comic emphasis. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in the *New York Evening Telegram* in 1912, became one of the longest-running domestic comedy strips in American newspaper history. Sterrett's later work grew increasingly abstract and cubist-influenced, making him a key figure in establishing that comic strips could be serious visual art.