Polly and Her Pals — 1925-06-26

Four panels follow Sam'l inviting the large, plaid-coated Susie to a show. She enthusiastically agrees; he hustles her to put on her bonnet; mid-stride she chokes and grabs her face — her false teeth have come loose. The final panel lands the punchline: Sam'l, flustered, announces he has lost *her* ticket. Sterrett's linework is confidently loose, his figures broad and rubbery, the speech rendered in vernacular dialect typical of daily newspaper strips. Launched in 1912 by King Features, *Polly and Her Pals* was among the earliest strips to develop consistent recurring characters and reliable comedic rhythm across dailies — precisely the serialized, panel-based visual storytelling that would directly inform the anthology comic books assembled from newspaper reprints in the 1930s.