Polly and Her Pals

"Polly and Her Pals" was an American comic strip created by Cliff Sterrett which ran from 1912 until 1958.

History

"Polly and Her Pals" debuted as "Positive Polly" on December 4 1912cite web |url=http://www.toonopedia.com/pollypal.htm |title=Polly and Her Pals |accessdate=2007-05-15 |author=Don Markstein |publisher=Toonopedia] in the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, initially the New York "Journal".cite web |url=http://lambiek.net/artists/s/sterrett.htm |title=Cliff Sterrett |accessdate=2007-05-15 |author=Kees Kousemaker |publisher=Comiclopedia] Polly was a pretty young girl with a flirting mind, a child of the Suffragette movement and a precursor of the flapper girls of the 1920s. But as the center of the action changed from Polly to the complete household, the title changed as well to "Polly and Her Pals". The main character became Polly's father, nicknamed "Paw".

The excitable Paw was Sam (aka Sambo) Perkins. Maw (Susie) was the one with common-sense and sided with Polly. Staying with them was dim-witted nephew Ashur Earl Perkins who was a font of bad advice and Carrie, a sister in law whose visit never ended with her brat, Gertrude. The family had a Japanese servant, Neewah who mostly did not understand what was going on. There was also a cat called Kitty who sometimes played a comic part in the strips. An accompanying short strip to Polly was "Dot and Dash" (also by Sterrett), about the antics of Kitty and a dog originally but in 1926, it became 2 dogs. Sterrett's work was notably for the positively weird trees, houses, windows, staircases and such. He often drew them in a surrealist style.

Sterrett was initially the sole creator of the comic, both for the daily strips and the Sunday strips. However, in the 1930s, Sterrett had to hand over most of the work on the daily strips to assistants like Paul Fung and Vernon Greene due to arthritis. The daily strip ended in the 1940s; the last Sunday page, still created by Sterrett, was published on June 15 1958.

Influence

"Polly" was the first of a whole series of comic strips about flirting pretty girls, like "Boots and Her Buddies" by Edgar Martin, "Blondie" by Chic Young and "Fritzi Ritz", the comic by Larry Whittington that would later spawn "Nancy". Although it was highly influential, it was never very popular and lacked the merchandising and spin-off books many contemporary comic strips had.

The comic was not only remarkable for its creation of a new subgenre and prototype, [cite web |url=http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article153.html |title=You've Come a Long Way, Joanie! |accessdate=2007-05-15 |publisher=Center for Media Literacy |quote=For example, the first strip about a woman, "Polly and Her Pals," featured a "tall, attractive young lady with a mind of her own." She became a prototype. Even her "French doll" look, cast the mold for future generations of comic women ] but also for its cubism-inspired graphics. It is now considered as one of the masterpieces of the American comic strips of the Interwar period, both for its graphical qualities as for its storytelling innovations and humor, [cite web |url=http://www.actuabd.com/spip.php?article2566 |title=Polly and Her Pals, 1929-1930 |accessdate=2007-05-15 |author=Laurent Boileau |date=2005-06-05 |publisher=ActuaBD |language=French] and Sterrett is lauded as one of the great innovators of the comic strip. When "Polly and Her Pals" was included in the Library of Congress exhibition "Cartoon America", it was praised for its unique graphic style, [cite web |url=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/cartoonamerica/cartoon-laughs.html |title=Laughs! Tears! Thrills!: Comic Strips |accessdate=2007-05-15 |date=2006-11-13 |publisher=Library of Congress] , and is considered to be together with "Krazy Kat" the epitome of the Art Deco style in comics. [cite web |url=http://www.cnbdi.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=40 |title=Le Musée des Beaux-Arts |accessdate=2007-05-15 |publisher=Centre National de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image |quote=On pense particulièrement à Krazy Kat de George Herriman et surtout à Polly and her Pals de Cliff Sterrett. ] It had considerable influence on many later cartoonists, including Jules Feiffer. [cite web |url=http://www.antonnews.com/portwashingtonnews/2003/11/14/news/ |title=Jules Feiffer Visits Port Washington Library |accessdate=2007-05-15 |author=Dolores Kazanjian O'Brien |date=2003-11-14 |publisher=Port Washington News]

Book editions

A monthly "Polly and her Pals" publication was published briefly in 1922 by Embee Dist. Later during the original run, some "Polly" comics have been collected by Saalfield Publishing in 1934 ("Polly and Her Pals on the Farm")The earliest Polly strips have been collected in 1977 by Hyperion Press (ISBN 978-0883556658), while a number of Sunday pages have been reprinted by Kitchen Sink Press in 1990 (ISBN 978-0924359149, nominated for Best Domestic Reprint at the Harvey Awards [cite web |url=http://www.harveyawards.org/awards_1992nom.html |title=1992 Harvey Award Nominees |accessdate=2007-05-15] ) and in 1991 by Remco Worldservice Books (ISBN 978-0924359156). More daily strips have been 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, [cite web |url=http://www.editionsdelan2.com/article.php3?id_article=96 |title=Polly and her pals, 1929-1930 |accessdate=2007-05-15 |publisher=Editions de l'an 2 |language=French] and this edition was nominated for the 2006 Prize for Inheritance at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. [cite web |url=http://www.bdangouleme.com/prixJury/index.ideal?action=nommes&annee=2006&id=5&voir=tout |title=Selection officielle 2006: prix du patrimoine |accessdate=2007-05-15 |publisher=Festival International de la Bande Dessinée |language=French]

Notes