Polly and Her Pals — October 12, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* (launched 1912) follows Polly's engagement ring through four tight panels: a neighbor breaks the news, the family admires George's solitaire gift, Polly winces because it fits too snugly, and Paw delivers the punchline — Clarence couldn't get the ring off her finger last night. Sterrett's linework is already sophisticated: crosshatched plaid trousers, expressive silhouettes, speech balloons that crowd the frame with overlapping domesticity. The strip exemplifies how syndicated newspaper dailies, running six columns wide, trained readers to track recurring characters across weeks and months — the exact sequential literacy that made the first comic-book reprints of the mid-1930s commercially viable. Sterrett would push the strip's Art Deco geometry further through the 1920s, earning him lasting respect among cartoonists.