Polly and Her Pals — 1925-06-08

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912, making it one of the longest-running American newspaper strips of its era. This four-panel daily follows Polly's suitor Jerry Tumble, smallest of the acrobatic Tumble Brothers, who invites her to an Acrobats Benefit Masque Ball. A bystander needles him for being the "runt" of the trio; the gag pays off when the towering brothers appear and smother the teaser in a brotherly bear-hug. Sterrett's draftsmanship is clean and economical — expressive pantomime, efficient balloon placement, a punchline built entirely on scale contrast. Strips like this one, syndicated daily to hundreds of papers, supplied the page layouts and recurring-character conventions that printers would soon gather into the first comic books.