Polly and Her Pals — October 24, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and became one of the most visually inventive strips of the early newspaper era. This October 1922 daily introduces Polly's new beau as a State Forest Preserve official — a setup her rotund, ruffled mother greets with skepticism, culminating in the punchline that he's "shot a lotta woodpeckers." Five panels move from parlor chat to physical comedy, the characters rendered in Sterrett's bold outlines and decorative patterned clothing. Strips like this one are foundational documents: the daily newspaper page, with its recurring cast, sequential panels, and speech balloons, supplied the direct template from which the comic book format was assembled in the 1930s.