Polly and Her Pals — 1922-03-01

This daily strip opens with two squat figures asking whether 'Lo Plum Blossom' helped Auntie Polly with marketing — the answer confirmed across two panels of excited reunions ('Lo Gran'pa!' 'Lo Honey!'). The joke lands in the final panel: Grandpa's hands are sticky because he had a chocolate éclair hidden in his muff. Sterrett's draftsmanship is confident and economical — expressive silhouettes, lively cross-hatching, and speech balloons that manage overlapping voices without confusion. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912, was among the earliest newspaper strips to center a recurring female protagonist. Sterrett later developed an almost Cubist page design on Sundays, influencing generations of cartoonists. These syndicated daily strips — mechanically reproduced, nationally distributed — directly seeded what would become the collected comic book format by the 1930s.