It says this strip has been running since 2008, so it can’t be that it’s just settling in. How long should I continue to read it before giving up on what’s going on?

It says this strip has been running since 2008, so it can’t be that it’s just settling in. How long should I continue to read it before giving up on what’s going on?

Syndicate sites like GoComics and ComicsKingdom have a variety of reruns (or, if you prefer, vintage comics). But some of them don’t age well.
These are all old comics which are being repeated. There are certainly a number of old comics that we wouldn’t expect to see now (e.g. the drunken domestic violence played for laughs in old Andy Capp), but I’m limiting this to ones that I’ve currently found being repeated.
Here’s a few examples:

A fire at an asbestos factory (and there are still some) would likely be a major disaster, putting all those asbestos fibers into the air.

Mitch sent in this one, dated 1991. George Burns was indeed long-lived, and continued performing into his very senior years — which is sort of the joke here, saying he might go on into the distant future. But then he did die, in 1996 (at age 100).

Concussions aren’t funny any more.

Hair tonics have historically been marketed as a way to make hair grow faster, but without much evidence. In recent years, there has been a shift towards more evidence-based approaches to hair care, with a focus on products that are supported by scientific research, such as medications like minoxidil and finasteride, which are approved by the FDA for the treatment of hair loss.

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*tattoo
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And Nancy benefits from this double-bluff strategy by … what?


From timharrod, who asks : It looks on the surface like everyone’s missing an item, and the reason turns out to be that Wallace built a raft out of them, but it’s still opaque: why would a kid building a sand castle be looking for a rope? Why the lifeguard? Is Wallace actually on a raft or is that Mom’s hypothesis?

Are those his dreams? Or what’s happening outside?
Either way, is there a punch line or message of some sort in the surprising outcome, that it leaves him well rested?
August, 1933: More cultural references to decipher.

Did I miss some modern artifact (radio in 1933, or a refrigerator)?
There was a rather turbulent mayoral election in New York in 1933: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_New_York_City_mayoral_election
It took a while to find a candidate who would fly with the voters.


Euphemism?


Is Mooney someone we would have known?

Chemgal sends this in, as does billr as well.

Some might say making a joke this obscure really isn’t cricket.
This first one may not strictly count as CIDU, since in the end I do understand it. But it took a lot of work!

For this other one, the song quoted and the musician mentioned are easily verified to match up, even if not in your personal playlist. But …

… but I genuinely don’t get the part about “If you’re gonna sound like a Karen…” — there doesn’t seem to be enough basis to take that in the contemporary quasi-political sense of a denigrating term for a woman being fussy in a certain way. And without that, what is there for “sound like a Karen” to mean?