Polly and Her Pals — 1922-12-28

Cliff Sterrett's *Polly and Her Pals* launched in 1912 and became one of the most formally inventive strips in American newspaper syndication. This four-panel daily turns on a single comic premise: Pa, forced into flamboyant Paris pajamas as a Christmas gift, refuses to be seen in them even during a house fire. A neighbor shouts escape through the window; Pa replies he'll stay and cook rather than show himself in such regalia. Sterrett's crosshatched linework and expressive figure drawing — Pa sputtering with mortified dignity, the smoke-filled exterior — demonstrate the daily strip's compression: four panels, one escalating absurdity, clean payoff. These syndicated dailies, circulated nationally through services like McNaught, directly seeded the anthology reprint pamphlets that became the American comic book.