Polly and Her Pals — 1925-06-27

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and became one of the longest-running newspaper strips in American history. This four-panel daily turns on a classic domestic misunderstanding: Pa, reading his paper, learns that 'Ashur Url Perkins is engaged to be married.' The news triggers a rapid volley of cross-purposes — who exactly is being referred to, nephew or gal? — resolved in the final panel with a broad physical reaction. Sterrett drew his characters with rubbery, expressive bodies and tight, economical staging. Strips like this one were the direct raw material from which comic books emerged: reprinted dailies and Sundays, collected and staple-bound, taught readers the conventions of sequential panels and speech balloons that define the medium today.