Polly and Her Pals — February 23, 1922

Clifford Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* began in 1912 as one of America's first newspaper strips built around a recurring female lead. This four-panel daily shows Pa spotting Polly waiting on a street corner, then exchanging banter with her about a late date with Dick — the punchline landing when Pa, who apparently arranged the meeting himself for six o'clock sharp, is caught out. Sterrett's line is confident and economical: hatched plaid trousers on Pa, Polly's dark skirt and elaborate hair rendered in silhouette, speech balloons lettered with expressive caps. Strips like this one — syndicated nationwide through Newspaper Feature Service — were the direct commercial and formal ancestors of the comic book, establishing panel sequence, character continuity, and balloon dialogue as the medium's bedrock grammar.