Polly and Her Pals — 1925-06-24

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (Newspaper Feature Service, 1912–1958) is one of the longest-running American comic strips, yet its center of gravity was always Polly's blustery father, Paw Perkins. This four-panel daily shows a nervous young suitor asking Mr. Perkins for his daughter's hand; Paw deflects by offering his opinions on young men and marriage, recalling when he had "a full set o' whiskers an' ideals" — only to conclude, ruefully, "I still got th' whiskers." Sterrett's loose brushwork, expressive silhouettes, and tight panel-to-panel escalation exemplify the daily-strip grammar that syndicated newspaper comics exported worldwide, training generations of readers in sequential visual storytelling before the comic book existed as a format.