Polly and Her Pals — Daily Strip

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (1912–1958) is one of the longest-running newspaper strips in American history. This daily follows Ashur — Polly's rotund, newspaper-absorbed father — as a neighbor woman reports that Alice hasn't spoken to Ash in six months. A third character, barely roused from his chair, cuts straight to advice: "Marry the gal, y'pore sap!" The final panel delivers the punchline with Sterrett's characteristic broad physical comedy. The strip pioneered the recurring domestic ensemble: Pa as hapless center, women as the real engines of action. Sterrett's clean ink line and expressive character design influenced a generation of cartoonists whose Sunday pages became the direct template — cut, stapled, reprinted — for the first comic books of the 1930s.