Polly and her pals 1933

By the early 1930s, Cliff Sterrett had transformed Polly and Her Palsinto the world's premier surrealistic comic strip.

Polly debuted in 1912 as oneof the earliest "pretty girl" strips, but it was in 1925 that Sterrett enteredhis peak period, developing a new style replete with Art Deco decorations,abstract backgrounds, and distinctive surreal perspectives - all withinthe context of a down-right hilarious situation comedy.

Sterrett's Sunday pages(also being published by The Library of American Comics) have long beenhailed as individual masterpieces, but his daily strips - due to theirrarity - have eluded archivists for the past ninety years.

The discovery by The Library of American Comics of syndicate proofs for someearly 1930s dailies - plus new information about Sterrett's involvementwith a Maine-based artist colony - fills a major hole in comics history. The strips reprinted here - the complete year of 1933 dailies - showSterrett at his most inventive, building gags upon gags within one- and two-weekcontinuities, culminating in a spectacular holiday story in which the entirecast - Polly, Maw and Paw Perkins, cousin Ashur, Neewah, and the rest ofthe outrageous Perkins household - is transfigured into living, breathingChristmas dolls.