Polly and Her Pals — October 5, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (Hearst, 1912–1958) was among the longest-running newspaper comic strips in American history. This daily strip — titled "Well, It Was the Truth, at That" — runs five panels: the family's neighbor reports that Jess has returned from Africa with tall tales; Jess claims to have shot a 75-foot snake; a skeptical listener calls it a whopper; then, with perfect comic timing, Jess politely says "I believe you, bub" — only for the final panel to deliver the punchline: "You never did!" Sterrett's loose, confident linework, expressive figures, and tight gag construction exemplify the daily newspaper strip's role as the true cradle of sequential comics — panels, speech balloons, recurring characters, and compressed narrative all fully formed here, a decade before the first comic book appeared.