Polly and Her Pals — September 13, 1920

Four daily-strip panels follow a soaking-wet suitor who explains he sacrificed his umbrella to spare a 'beach belle' from the rain, only to have her complexion run onto her collar. Cliff Sterrett draws his signature rounded, rubbery figures — the portly, blustering mother dominating the frame while younger characters orbit her — with cross-hatched shadows and expressive speech balloons that crowd the gutters. The caption below reads *A Collar Makes a Fine Color Collector*. Launched in 1912, *Polly and Her Pals* pioneered the recurring domestic cast and the visual shorthand — reaction takes, drip-lines, layered dialogue — that Sunday pages and daily strips codified into the grammar later collected as the first comic books.