Polly and Her Pals

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and ran for four decades, becoming one of the most visually inventive strips in American newspapers. This daily strip follows Pa Perkins, the strip's true comic center despite Polly's billing. Four panels track a single gag: Polly announces that the acrobatic Tumble Brothers are coming to take Pa for a ride; Pa, initially skeptical, reverses himself completely upon seeing them arrive on a motorcycle; the final panel finds him missing entirely, launched or tumbled offscreen. Sterrett's draftsmanship is clean and confident, his figures expressive, his timing precise. Newspaper dailies like this one were the direct ancestors of the comic book — syndicated strips trained artists and readers alike in sequential visual storytelling, panel rhythm, and the speech balloon as narrative engine.