Polly and Her Pals — PO361216

Four panels of Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* follow Paw Perkins interrogating the household about a new cook who never materialized. She showed up, he reports, but he fired her on the spot — "No experience. Too much!" — then reveals the kicker: she arrived half a day late and immediately asked for the afternoon off. Sterrett's chunky crosshatching, expressive silhouettes, and tightly timed punch line demonstrate the daily newspaper strip at its most efficient. Launched in 1912 for the Hearst syndicate, *Polly and Her Pals* is among the earliest strips to develop a stable cast of recurring domestic characters — the foundation on which comic-book anthology formats would later be built. Sterrett later pushed the strip toward bold Cubist-influenced abstraction in its Sunday pages, influencing a generation of cartoonists.