Polly and Her Pals — August 19, 1922

In this four-panel daily, Pa — settled comfortably outdoors — reassures his wife that she has "the most comfortable spot in the hull house," then cheerfully offers to swap seats, leaving her baffled in a gusty chair while he disappears indoors with his newspaper. Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, making it one of the longest-running family comic strips in American newspaper history. Sterrett's draftsmanship — expressive silhouettes, kinetic figures, elaborate decorative backgrounds in his Sunday pages — influenced a generation of cartoonists. These syndicated newspaper strips, daily and Sunday alike, formed the direct material that early comic-book publishers reprinted in the 1930s, making the newspaper page the literal cradle of the American comic book.