Polly and Her Pals — "Time Is Money, Oh My, Yes!"

Cliff Sterrett's daily strip opens with a telephone call summoning Pa to meet a broker at "Himmie's" — a venue Polly has never heard of. In the second panel she quizzes the bewildered Pa; the third delivers the gag: Himmie's is an exclusive club patronized only by millionaire "mop magnates." The final panel shows Pa being physically ejected, hat spinning, onto the street. Sterrett's draftsmanship is already sophisticated — kinetic figures, expressive balloon lettering, and fluid panel-to-panel momentum. Launched in 1912 by King Features, *Polly and Her Pals* pioneered the recurring domestic cast and the surrealist visual invention that later strips would codify. Newspaper dailies like this one — syndicated, sequential, character-driven — are the direct ancestor of the comic book format.