Sam's Strip Was Meta

Meta has been defined as "a prefix meaning a later, more comprehensive, transcending, or more highly organized version of something. Used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one."

There was a meta-comic strip in 1961 - Sam's Strip, the comic strip that knew it was a comic strip. It never became popular, never appeared in more than 60 newspapers, lasted two years, and "confounded many readers." It was clever, though, and ahead of its time. Five examples of Sam's Strip by Mort Walker and Jerry Dumas: