Polly and Her Pals — June 19, 1925

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 as one of the earliest newspaper strips built around a recurring cast. This four-panel daily follows Pa — wearing his signature plaid knickers — teaching Polly to fish. He sends her off confidently, spends two hours apparently struggling himself, then appears in the final panel half-submerged beside an enormous fish that has swallowed the hook whole, announcing he 'can't dig it oot.' The gag turns entirely on Pa's deflated competence. Sterrett's draftsmanship here is economical: clear silhouettes, expressive posture, and speech balloons doing all narrative work — the visual shorthand newspaper strip artists codified in the 1910s–20s that later migrated directly into the first comic books.