Polly and Her Pals

Polly and Her Pals is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Cliff Sterrett, which ran from 1912 until 1958. It is regarded as one of the most graphically innovative strips of the 20th century. It debuted as Positive Polly on December 4, 1912 in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, initially the New York Journal.

An accompanying topper strip, also drawn by Sterrett, was created to run above Polly on Sundays—a pantomime strip called Dot and Dash. Originally titled Damon and Pythias, about the antics of a cat and dog—they became two dogs in 1926. Highlighting Sterrett's panels were oddly stylized backgrounds (trees, houses, windows, staircases), occasionally drawn in a distorted, cubist style.

Belles and Wedding Bells was another topper created by Sterrett. Unlike Dot and Dash, Belles (originally called Sweethearts and Wives) had dialogue, and a constantly changing cast made up of diverse romantic human couples. The strip played up the ironic contrasts between courtship and marriage. Each episode began with a scene of pre-married bliss, followed by an "intermission" panel framed with wedding bells and an ominous caption: "And then they were married..." The exact same scenario would then be re-enacted post-wedding by the now-jaded couple—with drastically different results.

Sterrett was initially the sole creator of the comic, producing both daily and Sunday strips. During the 1930s, however, Sterrett's arthritis prompted him to assign work on the daily strips to assistants Paul Fung and Vernon Greene. The daily strip ended in the 1940s. The last Sunday page, still drawn by Sterrett, was published on June 15, 1958.

Polly and Her Pals was the first of several comic strips about flirting pretty girls, including Edgar Martin's Boots and Her Buddies, Chic Young's Blondie and Fritzi Ritz (Larry Whittington's strip that later spawned Nancy). Although Polly and Her Pals was highly influential, it was never a licensing success, and lacked the spin-off books and merchandise generated by other contemporary comic strips.

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