Polly and Her Pals — 1917-05-31

Three panels show a character planting what appears to be a bomb inside a piano, intending to end Aunt Maggie's music lessons. The piano explodes spectacularly — BOOM! — sending keys, lid, and legs flying in a kinetic burst of lines and debris. Bystanders exclaim "Heavens, wot a blast!" The final panel has two figures surveying the smoke, debating whether Aunt Maggie survived and deserves "another shot." Cliff Sterrett's draftsmanship is bold and economical: chunky crosshatching, expressive silhouettes, fluid action lines. *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 in the *New York Evening Telegram* and became one of the longest-running American comic strips, its daily and Sunday pages helping establish the recurring-cast domestic-comedy format that would directly seed the first anthology comic books of the 1930s.