The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead

This Sunday newspaper strip follows Polly, a young girl prone to napping, through a series of escalating mishaps. A jack-in-the-box becomes the instrument of comic chaos: Polly attempts to open it while sleeping, a man tries to help, and the spring-loaded figure launches into the air with predictable mayhem. The strip demonstrates early cartooning technique—multiple panels advancing narrative sequence, simple line work, exaggerated physical comedy, and the recurring character device that defined newspaper comics. Such strips populated Sunday pages and daily editions, establishing the visual vocabulary of sequential art that would form the foundation of the comic book medium: panel borders, character consistency, and action-driven humor told through image and minimal text.