Polly and Her Pals — September 30, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* runs four panels here, centered on the rotund, irascible Pa and his wife Ma. Pa praises their stenographer enthusiastically; Ma fires her on the spot ('She goes! She's got me?'); Pa sputters ('Dawgone! A coupla confoundits!'); a child wonders aloud why Ma is 'so insanely jealous' of Pa's stenographer — then the punchline lands: Sis herself becomes the replacement. Sterrett's draftsmanship is dense and kinetic, with bold cross-hatching and expressive, rubber-limbed figures. Launched in 1912 by King Features, *Polly* was among the first newspaper strips to develop a consistent ensemble cast across years, directly anticipating the reprint collections that became the first true comic books in the early 1930s.