Leveraging the Past to Move into the Future

Syndicates have been struggling for the last several years in trying to get newspaper comics to appeal to... well, anyone again. Nancy and, more recently, Mark Trail have gotten substantial overhauls, and King Features let a string of guest arists loose on Popeye's Cartoon Club. There seems to be a sloooooooowly growing recognition that newspaper strips can't just keep doing what they've been doing for the past several decades.

So I'd like to suggest some elements that were used in comic strips once upon a time, but have fallen out of fashion. Bringing some of these back could be seen as shaking things up and, since some of these haven't been seen in decades, could in fact be seen as entirely new and original. What if modern comic strips included the following..?

Dead people
Dramatic lighting
"Zounds!"
Characters reacting to the punchline by falling over backwards.

Telegram Offices

Topless women.
Wait--what?

Old comic strips also had a LOT of rampant racism and casual stereotyping, but I think we can pretty confidently say that shit can stay in the past. Let's be selective about what elements wew bring back out for an encore!

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