Polly and Her Pals — PO350309

Four panels under the title *A Lucky Break* show an old man at a fish tank denying he teased the occupant; a second character threatens to fetch a spyglass and check for fingerprints on the globe; chaos ensues — the globe shatters with a loud SMACK — and the final panel leaves the old man dazed amid debris while question marks float above his head. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the Hearst syndicate, making it one of the longest-running newspaper strips of the early century. Sterrett's bold diagonals, decorative patterning, and confident slapstick timing helped establish the daily strip as a self-sufficient narrative art form — the direct ancestor of the comic book page.