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.
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.
[3] 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.
Along the way, they encountered strip stars such as Blondie and Charlie Brown, cult favorites like Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse, and old-timers such as Happy Hooligan and Tillie the Toiler.
“Walker and Dumas clearly take pleasure in working in callbacks to classic comic strips [and] many of the metatextual gags are funny and fun," wrote The Comics Journal's Shaenon Garrity, adding that "Dumas’s drawings of classic comic-strip characters are excellent.”[6] Andrew Williams of Den of Geek agreed that "the strips that chip away at the fourth wall in particular frequently raise a smile, and occasionally even a laugh.
Instead, they whiled away a lot of their time with politically themed, time-dependent gags trading on the 'New Frontier' administration of John Kennedy and the contemporary Cold War atmosphere.
"[3] Andrew Williams' review agreed with that last statement: "[T]he 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.