Nearly everyone read the same comics and cartoonists and kept up with what Flash Gordon or Little Orphan Annie was doing, same as we might keep up with the Kardashians. In the period where this phrase came to common usage (the decades surrounding WWII) the Sunday newspaper comic strips were BIG media (and the daily strips, and the editorial cartoons, to a lesser extent). 'Hey, have you seen what's in the paper today? Hitler bombed The Vatican!'). 'The papers' was equivalent to today's 'trending' (i.e. the newspaper) was the main way most people knew any fact, any trend, anything that was the zeitgeist of the time. Everyone could afford a newspaper, or access one cheaply or free. Newspapers used to be THE main source of all information.

To understand the phrase 'See you in the funny papers' one must know a few things about American culture and history: This use by scouts suggests it's not insulting, but may be used in a good-natured, light-hearted mocking manner. Here's a 1922 example in the signoff of a report in The Tusla Scout from Troop 12 by Ed M'Lain (published in The Tulsa Daily World, March 19, 1922): La, la, till the next time, and I'll see you in the funny papers. Here's a Apletter published in University of Virginia student paper The Virginia Reel (ApVol. We will see you in the 'funny paper' next month. '30.'Īnother in the Union Postal Clerk (March 1921, Vol. So long, boys, see you in the funny paper. The earliest example I found of the phrase is in a letter in Commercial Telegraphers' Journal (August 1920, Vol. The OED has funny paper from 1874 and funny column from 1860, meaning 'a (section of a) newspaper containing humorous matter or illustrations'. Perhaps adopted in the UK from American servicemen c.

'This jocular farewell suggests that the person addressed is rather laughable: US: 1920s extinct by the 1950s' (R.C., 1978). See you in the funny papers (-often and orig. See you in the funny paper means 'Goodbye, see you soon'.Ī Dictionary of Catch Phrases (1986) by Eric Partridge and Paul Beale says:

Seeya in the funny pages