Polly and Her Pals — PO361207

Four panels titled *The Wide Open Spaces*: a portly, checkered-suited figure—Paw, the strip's domestic anchor—enters carrying a newspaper so thoroughly clipped by his family that only ragged scraps remain. Asked if he's found an old treasure map, he replies simply "Nope," then explains it's his morning paper after everyone cut out what interested them. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in the *New York Evening Telegram* in 1912, making it one of America's longest-running daily strips. Sterrett pioneered bold geometric abstraction in backgrounds decades before it was fashionable, while mastering the recurring-cast domestic comedy that newspapers—and soon comic books, which reprinted exactly these strips—depended upon to build loyal readerships.