Sam's Strip

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Sam's Strip is a comic strip that appeared from October 1961 to June 1963. It was written by Mort Walker, drawn by Jerry Dumas, and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It reached a peak circulation of about 60 newspapers, not enough to sustain it.

In Sam's Strip, the title character Sam was aware of being the proprietor of the comic strip in which he appeared. The strip relied heavily on metahumor, break-outs into other comic strip universes, appearances by classic comic strip characters, and breaking the fourth wall. Other comic strips have used metahumor from time to time — for example, Pogo used objectified speech balloons and on rare occasions the characters could see the artist's signature; Doonesbury characters look at putative fan mail — but Sam's Strip used it every day. Thus, it held a special interest for comic strip aficionados; but it left the general public nonplussed.

The only other recurring character was Sam's unnamed assistant. The two of them were brought back later, and the assistant was given a name, in the more conventional gag-a-day comic strip Sam and Silo (1977- ), featuring the two characters in a small american town.

One paperback collection, titled Sam's Strip Lives!, was published in small quantities under the aegis of the Museum of Cartoon Art.