funnies

"The funnies" is an informal term for the comic strips printed in newspapers. It usually refers to the part of the paper where short illustrated stories or joke strips appear, especially in the Sunday edition. In the early 1900s, many newspapers gave these comics their own pages or special sections. Because these pages were meant to entertain readers and make them laugh, people started calling them the "funny papers," and from that came the shorter name "the funnies."

Over time, newspaper comics grew from simple joke cartoons into longer-running strips with famous characters like those in Peanuts, Garfield, and Dilbert. The format has changed over the years, and many people now read comics online or in collections, but the term still has an old-fashioned, warm feeling. It often brings to mind the habit of opening a newspaper and turning to the comics before reading anything else.

You might say, "I used to lie on the floor with my dad and read the Sunday funnies," or, "She turned straight to the funnies before reading the front page." The term suggests childhood comfort, routine, and a small moment of laughter in the middle of the news. Even though printed newspapers are less common today, "the funnies" still survives as a familiar way to talk about newspaper comics.