Polly and Her Pals

First Appeared: 1912 Creator: Cliff Sterrett Under the name Positive Polly, the strip started on Dec. 4, 1912, in the Hearst chain of newspapers. Polly became the template for Boots &amp; Her Buddies, Fritzi Ritz and a host of other strips about pretty girls and their flirty adventures. Sterrett wrote and drew Polly both daily and Sunday, hitting his stride in the 1920s with innovative storylines and highly stylistic, cubist-inspired art. In the 1930s, he had trouble with arthritis, and was forced to pass the dailies on to assistants. Without Sterrett, the daily Polly ground to a halt in the 1940s. The Sunday continued; but it, too, suffered when, after World War II, Sterrett no longer had a whole page for his stunning artwork. The strip lost papers at a steady rate, and ended on Sunday, June 15, 1958. Sterrett then retired. He died six years later. -<i>Don Markstein&#39;s Toonopedia</i>