Polly and Her Pals
Encyclopedia
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
.
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.
Sterrett was initially the sole creator of the comic, producing both daily
and Sunday strip
s. 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.
, 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.
The comic was not only remarkable for its creation of a new subgenre and prototype, but also for its cubism-inspired graphics.
Six full-color Polly Sunday pages were prominently featured in Bill Blackbeard
's The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (Abrams, 1977), representing for many modern fans their first opportunity to see the strip. It is now considered one of the masterpieces of American comic strips of the Interwar period
, both for its graphic qualities and its storytelling and humor. Sterrett has been lauded as one of the great innovators of the comic strip form, and is one of 16 groundbreaking cartoonists featured in America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1989, Abbeville Press) by comics historian Rick Marschall
. When Polly and Her Pals was included in the Library of Congress
exhibition Cartoon America, it was praised for its unique graphic style, and is considered to be, together with Krazy Kat
, the epitome of the Art Deco
style in comics. It had considerable influence on many later cartoonists, including Jules Feiffer
.
A monthly Polly and Her Pals publication was published briefly in 1922 by Embee. Polly and Her Pals on the Farm was a 1934 collection from Saalfield Publishing
. The earliest Polly strips were collected in 1977 by Hyperion Press (ISBN 978-0883556658), while some Sunday pages have been reprinted by Kitchen Sink Press
in 1990 (ISBN 978-0924359149, nominated for Best Domestic Reprint at the Harvey Award
s) and in 1991 by Remco Worldservice Books (ISBN 978-0924359156). More daily strips were reprinted by Arcadia Publications in 1990.
The French publisher Editions de l'an 2 continued the reprints started by Kitchen Sink and Remco in 2005 in French, and this edition was nominated for the 2006 Prize for Inheritance
at the Angoulême International Comics Festival
.
The Portuguese publisher Libri Impressi published in 2010 Dot & Dash (ISBN 9789898355034), in color and restored by Manuel Caldas (mainly known for the restoration of 1937-48 Hal Foster's Prince Valiant
), with a forward (in English, Portuguese and Spanish) by Domingos Isabelinho. It covers the entirety of the strip Dot & Dash, including the debut phase of Damon and Pythias.
IDW Publishing
announced it will publish oversized, 12" x 16" full-color collections of the strip, slated for November 23, 2010 publication. The first volume in the series reprints three years of Sunday strips, beginning with 1925 and running through 1927. A companion series reprinting the daily strips is also in production.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Cliff Sterrett
Cliff Sterrett
Clifford Sterrett , was an innovative comic strip cartoonist who created the influential Polly and Her Pals....
, 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
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's newspapers, initially the New York Journal
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
.
Characters and story
- Polly Perkins - The nominal star of the strip was a pretty young girl, a flirtatious child of the SuffragetteSuffragette"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
movement and a precursor of the Jazz AgeJazz AgeThe Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
1920s flapperFlapperFlapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
s. Over time, the center of the action changed from Polly to those around her, and thus the title changed to Polly and Her Pals—though the "pals" were in fact members of her family: her parents and cousins. - Paw (aka Sam'l or Sambo) Perkins - Polly's excitable father, the main character and real star of the strip.
- Maw (aka Suzie) Perkins - Polly's headstrong mother was the one with common sense, who usually sided with Polly.
- Ashur Earl Perkins - Staying with them was their dimwitted nephew Ash, a font of bad advice.
- Carrie - Paw's sister-in-law, a constant house guest (and irritant).
- Gertrude - Carrie's precocious, spoiled brat of a daughter.
- Neewah - The family's Japanese houseboy, who mostly did not understand what was going on (or pretended not to).
- Kitty - An ever-present black housecat, who sometimes played a comic part in the strips.
Dot and Dash
An accompanying topperTopper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
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
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
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
and Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
s. During the 1930s, however, Sterrett's arthritis prompted him to assign work on the daily strips to assistants Paul Fung
Paul Fung
Paul Fung was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Dumb Dora.Fung's father was a Baptist minister, the Reverend Fung Chak, a graduate of Stanford University. Paul was born in Seattle, where his father was pastor of Seattle's Chinese Baptist mission...
and Vernon Greene
Vernon Greene
Vernon Van Atta Greene was a prolific cartoonist and illustrator who worked on several comic strips and was best known for his artwork on Bringing Up Father....
. The daily strip ended in the 1940s. The last Sunday page, still drawn by Sterrett, was published on June 15, 1958.
Influence and legacy
Polly and Her Pals was the first of several comic strips about flirting pretty girls, including Edgar Martin's Boots and Her BuddiesBoots and Her Buddies
Boots and Her Buddies is an American comic strip by Edgar Everett Martin. Syndicated by the Newspaper Enterprise Association, it ran from 1924 to 1969. Some newspapers ran the strip under the shortened title Boots...
, Chic Young
Chic Young
Murat Bernard Young , better known as Chic Young, was an American cartoonist who created the popular, long-running comic strip Blondie. His 1919 William McKinley High School Yearbook cites his nickname as Chicken, source of his familiar pen name and signature...
's Blondie
Blondie (comic strip)
Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930...
and Fritzi Ritz
Fritzi Ritz
Fritzi Ritz was an American comic strip created in 1922 by Larry Whittington. It eventually evolved into the popular Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller....
(Larry Whittington's strip that later spawned Nancy
Nancy (comic strip)
Nancy is an American daily and Sunday comic strip, originally written and drawn by Ernie Bushmiller and distributed by United Feature Syndicate....
). 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.
The comic was not only remarkable for its creation of a new subgenre and prototype, but also for its cubism-inspired graphics.
Six full-color Polly Sunday pages were prominently featured in Bill Blackbeard
Bill Blackbeard
William Elsworth Blackbeard , better known as Bill Blackbeard, was a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers...
's The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (Abrams, 1977), representing for many modern fans their first opportunity to see the strip. It is now considered one of the masterpieces of American comic strips of the Interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, both for its graphic qualities and its storytelling and humor. Sterrett has been lauded as one of the great innovators of the comic strip form, and is one of 16 groundbreaking cartoonists featured in America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1989, Abbeville Press) by comics historian Rick Marschall
Rick Marschall
Rick Marschall is a writer/editor and comic strip historian, described by Bostonia magazine as "America's foremost authority on pop culture." Marschall has served as an editor for both Marvel and Disney comics, plus several syndicates.Marschall has written and edited more than 62 books on cultural...
. When Polly and Her Pals was included in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
exhibition Cartoon America, it was praised for its unique graphic style, and is considered to be, together with Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
, the epitome of the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style in comics. It had considerable influence on many later cartoonists, including Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
.
Book editions
Saalfield Publishing
The Saalfield Publishing Company published children's books and other products from 1900 to 1977. It was once one of the largest publishers of children's materials in the world....
. The earliest Polly strips were collected in 1977 by Hyperion Press (ISBN 978-0883556658), while some Sunday pages have been reprinted by Kitchen Sink Press
Kitchen Sink Press
Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen owned and operated Kitchen Sink Press until 1999. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in...
in 1990 (ISBN 978-0924359149, nominated for Best Domestic Reprint at the Harvey Award
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
s) and in 1991 by Remco Worldservice Books (ISBN 978-0924359156). More daily strips were reprinted by Arcadia Publications in 1990.
The French publisher Editions de l'an 2 continued the reprints started by Kitchen Sink and Remco in 2005 in French, and this edition was nominated for the 2006 Prize for Inheritance
Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Inheritance
This Prize for Inheritance is awarded to comics authors at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.As is the customary practice in Wikipedia for listing awards such as Oscar results, the winner of the award for that year is listed first, the others listed below are the nominees.-2000s:* 2004:...
at the Angoulême International Comics Festival
Angoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest comics festival in Europe. It has occurred every year since 1974 in Angoulême, France, in the month of January.The four-day festival is notable for awarding several prestigious prizes in cartooning...
.
The Portuguese publisher Libri Impressi published in 2010 Dot & Dash (ISBN 9789898355034), in color and restored by Manuel Caldas (mainly known for the restoration of 1937-48 Hal Foster's Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...
), with a forward (in English, Portuguese and Spanish) by Domingos Isabelinho. It covers the entirety of the strip Dot & Dash, including the debut phase of Damon and Pythias.
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
announced it will publish oversized, 12" x 16" full-color collections of the strip, slated for November 23, 2010 publication. The first volume in the series reprints three years of Sunday strips, beginning with 1925 and running through 1927. A companion series reprinting the daily strips is also in production.