Comic strips like Peanuts, Family Circus, and now Red and Rover.
They have zero value of actual comedy, despite being labeled comics. Instead, it's about a boy whose hopes are constantly crushed, a family acting cute, and a boy and his dog being cute. It's so stupid and it seems ridiculous that people still think these are funny.
They became known as the torchbearers of comics pretty much because they were here first, and newspaper printers were too lazy to update their format to include newer and/or better comics.
It's kind of like Garfield. Garfield's a bland, humorless and inoffensive-as-possible comic where most gags include the characters doing nothing or being fat and lazy. It was solely designed to sell merchandise. But because it's been around for so long, people just automatically assume it must be good
