Polly and Her Pals — 1922-11-02

Four panels follow Eddie pressing Polly for her reason for refusing him. She relents — "if you must know, I'll tell you the truth" — and when Eddie announces he's "all ears," the final panel reveals the joke literally: his enormous ears fill the frame, earning a sharp "Plink!" and Polly's punchline, "Exactly, Eddie. That's the reason." Sterrett's draftsmanship is already fluid here, his figures loose and rubbery, speech balloons neatly integrated into staged domestic space. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912, was among the earliest newspaper strips to build consistent characterization across years — the recurring cast, the deadpan timing, the visual payoff in a final panel — all conventions that daily newspaper comics invented and handed wholesale to the comic book format that emerged in the 1930s.