Polly and Her Pals — 1922-05-24

Four panels of domestic panic: a woman weeps over her cat while an older woman insists the doctor ordered it "executed"; a man enters with the news that Willie flew the cat over the sea two hours ago to drop it there; the couple speculate Willie is either an ace or an angel; the final panel reveals the cat has returned, very much alive, batting a smoke ring. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, making it one of America's longest-running family strips. His bold black linework, expressive silhouettes, and stacked speech balloons helped standardize the visual grammar — timed revelation across a horizontal panel sequence — that daily newspaper strips exported directly into the first comic books of the 1930s.