Polly and Her Pals — 1922-12-05

Cliff Sterrett launched *Polly and Her Pals* in 1912 for the New York Evening Telegram, and this daily strip shows his domestic-comedy engine running at full speed. Four panels deliver a tight gag: Pa is scolded for discarding a half-smoked cigar — a millionaire mop magnate wouldn't waste it — then the household is thrown into chaos when a young woman is discovered fishing something out of the fireplace, earning a sharp send-off and a bucket of water in the final panel. Sterrett's draftsmanship is crisp and angular, his speech balloons cleanly integrated into crowded compositions. Strips like this one were the direct raw material for the first comic books of the 1930s, which reprinted newspaper dailies and taught readers worldwide the grammar of sequential panels.