Sam's Strip
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''Sam's Strip'' was a humorous
comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
created and produced by
Mort Walker Addison Morton Walker (September 3, 1923 – January 27, 2018) was an American comic strip writer, best known for creating the newspaper comic strips ''Beetle Bailey'' in 1950 and ''Hi and Lois'' in 1954. He signed Addison to some of his strips. ...
and Jerry Dumas. It was distributed by
King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product License, licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, columnist, newspape ...
from October 2, 1961 to June 1, 1963. The series depended heavily on metahumor and appearances by famous comic-strip characters.


Overview

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas met on Monday mornings to go over the gag ideas they had worked up for future installments of Walker's strips ''
Beetle Bailey ''Beetle Bailey'' is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Mort Walker, published since September 4, 1950. It is set on a fictional United States Army post. In the years just before Walker's death in 2018 (at age 94), it was among the old ...
'' and ''
Hi and Lois ''Hi and Lois'' is an American comic strip about a suburban family. Created by Mort Walker and illustrated by Dik Browne, both of whose children currently work on the strip, it debuted on October 18, 1954, distributed by King Features Syndicate ...
''. Just for fun, they started putting their considerable knowledge of comic-strip history to use in creating gags about characters from different strips and time periods meeting and interacting. An idea eventually came out of these exercises: What about a feature starring a guy who runs his own comic strip as a business? Walker, a fan of
alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Pe ...
, came up with the title ''Sam's Strip''. They split the gag writing, Dumas did the drawing, and Walker the lettering. When the pair took samples to Walker's regular distributor, King Features Syndicate, four executives barraged them with questions about the contents, but there was enough laughter that the editor finally gave the go-ahead. ''Sam's Strip'' debuted as a daily only on October 16, 1961. Bulb-nosed, seemingly neckless Sam owned and operated the comic strip he inhabited, and both he and his bespectacled, unnamed assistant were aware of their fictional, artistic status. They commented on the elements of cartooning, talked to the readers, abused their artist (a fictionalized Dumas), and played with the stock in their Cartoon Prop Closet (which contained everything from idea bulbs and flying money to pain stars and angry thought bubbles), all the while trying any scheme to make their business a success. Along the way, they encountered strip stars such as Blondie and
Charlie Brown Charles "Charlie" Brown is the Protagonist, principal character of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', syndicated in daily newspaper, daily and Sunday newspapers in numerous countries all over the world. Depicted as a "lovable loser", Charlie Brown ...
, cult favorites like
Krazy Kat ''Krazy Kat'' (also known as ''Krazy & Ignatz'' in some reprints and compilations) is an US, American newspaper comic strip, created by cartoonist George Herriman, which ran from 1913 to 1944. It first appeared in the ''New York Journal-America ...
and Ignatz Mouse, and old-timers such as Happy Hooligan and Tillie the Toiler. Dumas took pride in drawing each character's style exactly (there were no good copy machines at the time), but the job was intensely time-consuming. It took him three weeks to create a week's continuity about a comic characters convention that featured dozens of "guest stars." This metahumor made fans of cartoonists and informed comics aficionados (and some editors), but the reading public was left scratching its collective head. As Walker admitted later, "the readers had to be familiar with the various characters we were satirizing before they could get the gag. It's a tough sell." Just as Sam struggled to make his strip a hit, his creators did the same, and ''Sam's Strip'' never gained more than sixty newspapers before being cancelled on June 1, 1963. In 1977, Walker and Dumas reemployed Sam and his sidekick for a new strip with a "new" concept called ''
Sam and Silo ''Sam and Silo'' is an American comic strip created by Mort Walker (creator of '' Beetle Bailey'' and ''Hi and Lois'') and Jerry Dumas, which began on April 18, 1977. The series is a "continuation" or a spin-off of '' Sam's Strip'' (1961-1963), ...
'', about a pair of bumbling cops in a quiet little town. While not as imaginative or innovative (Don Markstein's Toonopedia calls it "just a typical comic strip"), it was far more popular. New ''Sam and Silo'' strips were still being produced, solely by Dumas, until his death in late 2016.


Critical analysis

“Walker and Dumas clearly take pleasure in working in callbacks to classic comic strips ndmany of the metatextual gags are funny and fun," wrote ''
The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...
s Shaenon Garrity, adding that "Dumas’s drawings of classic comic-strip characters are excellent.” Andrew Williams of ''
Den of Geek ''Den of Geek'' is a UK and US-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture. The website also issues a biannual magazine. History ''Den of Geek'' was founded in 2007 by Simon Brew in London. In 2012, DoG Tech LLC licensed ' ...
'' agreed that "the strips that chip away at the fourth wall in particular frequently raise a smile, and occasionally even a laugh." ''
Comic Book Resources ''CBR'', formerly ''Comic Book Resources'', is a news website primarily covering comic book news, comic book reviews, and comic book–related topics involving movies, television, anime, and video games. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publicat ...
''' Chad Nevett elaborated that "Walker and Dumas are very adept at making most of those jokes eaturing run-ins with other strip characterswork on two levels, where the character’s role is obvious to those unaware of its pre-existence, while those in the know will get an extra kick out of it." But Christopher Barat felt "that the creators didn't use heinter-strip get-togethers nearly as much as they should have. Instead, they whiled away a lot of their time with politically themed, time-dependent gags trading on the '
New Frontier The term ''New Frontier'' was used by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech, delivered July 15, in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memo ...
' administration of John Kennedy and the contemporary
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
atmosphere."


Books

One paperback collection, ''Sam's Strip Lives!'', was published in small quantities under the aegis of the Museum of Cartoon Art. In December 2008,
Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and (formerly) the Erotic comics, erotic Eros Comix imprint. They have managed sev ...
released a 208-page paperback book containing the entire run of ''Sam's Strip''. It includes brief introductions by Dumas and Walker, unpublished sketches, original artwork, photographs, and sales brochures. Plus there are select annotations by Dumas and comics historian Brian Walker. "These strips aren't perfect and some gags are repeated far too many times," wrote Chad Nevett, "but this collection made me laugh at least once on nearly every page. ... Once again, Fantagraphics delivers a stellar package." Andrew Williams' review agreed with that last statement: " e near-flawless execution of the book helps to make it feel like more of a prestige package, a celebration of the series rather than just a cheap cash-in. ... Although the book will largely be bought by fans of the series, it's still accessible for absolute newcomers." KC Carlson of Comics Worth Reading stated, "If you ever had more than a passing interest in newspaper strips, you owe it to yourself to check out this collection."


References

{{cite web, title=Sam's Strip , publisher=TV Tropes , url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicStrip/SamsStrip , accessdate=2016-02-22 American comic strips 1961 comics debuts 1977 comics debuts Comic strip duos Gag-a-day comics Satirical comics Metafictional comics Surreal comedy comics Fictional American people American comics characters Comics characters introduced in 1961 Comics about comics