Comic strips are usually referred to as "the funny pages." This is when the funniness sadly disappears.
- In Arne Anka, one strip ends with an over-the-top moment where a reporter blows up an amusement park and faxes a report about the dead children at the same time. Grotesquely over-the-top at the time (1994), but then in 2012 came the Utøya-massacre ...
- In some early Baby Blues strips, Wanda was shown to be a fan of Mel Gibson (or rather, his buns). Obviously, this was before his anti-Semetic rant and verbal abuse toward his girlfriend occurred.
- Big Nate: Between late April and early May 2020, there was an arc about the school district's art program being in danger of being removed, resulting in the kids protesting it at a town hall meeting regarding the education budget. At the end of the 2020-05-02 strip
, Chad says "I don't want to get tear-gassed". Later that month, the George Floyd protests began, which resulted in mass civil unrest, including several tear-gassing incidents. - Bloom County:
- The strip featured several comics making jokes about the marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles (specifically, an arc depicting them spending their honeymoon in New York). This isn't quite as funny after you consider their divorce and her death...
- One strip sets up the punchline by saying that the local newspaper reported on a "heterosexual AIDS epidemic" that turned out to be a false alarm. Doesn't read as funny now knowing that anyone can get infected with HIV.
- Calvin and Hobbes:
- One strip has Calvin criticize Susie's drawing of a home with a flower garden, instead claiming his manlier drawing of B-1 planes nuking New York. The September 11, 2001 attacks put the strip in a Dude, Not Funny! stance.
- In one strip, Calvin pretends he's flying a fighter plane and ends up blowing up his school. Watterson apparently got a few angry letters when it was first published, but defended it by saying that any kid Calvin's age has probably dreamed about blowing up their school at least once. Now that school shootings have shown themselves to be all too real, there's little chance it would be published at all today.
- In one story arc, Susie accuses Calvin of bringing a bomb to class. With bomb threats taken so seriously, a strip like that would never see the light of day today.
- In an early strip, Calvin tells his mom he wants to be a radical terrorist when he grows up. Not so funny after three girls left Britain to join ISIS but disappeared.
- The arc where Calvin is carried away by a balloon isn't so light-hearted ever since the Balloon Boy hoax.
- In one valentines day strip after Calvin is teased about having a crush on Susie he tells Hobbes "I'd say we're about due for another St. Valentines Day Massacre. Not as funny after the 2018 Parkland School shooting on February 14th that year.
- In a 1992 strip Calvin asks his mom if he can buy a Satan-worshipping metal album. Mom critiques those bands on the grounds that they're only in it for the aesthetic and won't commit to actually shocking and provoking. (She even suggests suicide.) The joke is that Calvin is now disillusioned with "mainstream commercial nihilism", but it's all much less funny knowing what was happening around the same time with Mayhem.
- The Dilbert comic published on September 11, 1997.
- Doonesbury:
- In a series of strips from the early 70s, Duke Harris, who's based on Hunter S. Thompson, accidentally shoots his assistant. Nearly thirty years later, Thompson accidentally did shoot his assistant.
- Another Doonesbury example... during the early stages of the Tiananmen Square protests, Trudeau ran some strips in which the character "Honey" Huan returns to China for a class reunion, only to be caught up, befuddled, in the midst of the protests. This story arc was dropped once the protests were quelled with a tragic massacre.
- In The Far Side, a strip involved Dick Clark aging 200 years in 30 seconds on national TV. That's a pretty accurate description of what happened to him when he had a stroke back in 2004.
- A Father's Day For Better or for Worse strip in 1989 showed Lizzie telling John, "You're the best daddy in the whole wide world!! Next to Bill Cosby, that is." By the time the strip came up for reprinting in 2018, Cosby had been convicted of sexual assault. As a result, the reprinted strip replaced Lizzie's second sentence with "Mom said you'd be happy if I said that!"
- FoxTrot:
- A 1996 strip has Roger and Andy sitting on the couch. When Andy asks what they're listening to, Roger informs her that some guy went into the wild and recorded the ambient sounds of different environments. "So far, it's pretty relaxing." The third panel has them both looking up as the 'guy' says "Hey, get away from that equipmen-" followed by growls, ripping noises, and screaming. The final panel of the strip has Andy reading the title of the CD over the sound of a burp and birdsong; "In the Midst of Grizzlies" while Roger says it was the last in the series. Guess what documentary filmmaker Timothy Treadwell, immortalized in the film Grizzly Man, was doing with his girlfriend when he died. Go on, guess. What's more, his camera captured an audio recoding of his death, but it has never been made public.
- In another strip, Roger has a nightmare about being forced to give stock certificates that he had in place for retirement to a Salvation Army bin, to which it is heavily implied that they are even more worthless than nickels and dimes. Concerning what ultimately has been happening in the stock market since 2008, that dream is so real.
- Notably prevented: The strip published July 22, 2012 was supposed to be showing Paige in the crosshairs of Jason's squirt gun. However, two days before it was supposed to run, a person named James Holmes wearing a gas mask entered a Colorado movie theater that was showing The Dark Knight Rises and proceeded to wildly fire his gun at the audience, killing 12 people and injuring 59 others. Bill Amend then pulled the strip and replaced it with a repeat of a 2009 strip.
- Garfield:
- There is a strip where Garfield said "We cats nap anywhere, anytime. Everyone should be so lucky. With the possible exception of airline pilots." In 2011, there were many cases of airline traffic controllers sleeping on the job and tragic accidents ensuing as a result.
- One strip◊ has Jon saying "We all have to live together. We all have to be considerate of our neighbors." The final panel shows Garfield in woman clothing as Jon yells "SO RETURN THOSE TO MRS. FEENY!". This was written in advance like all comic strips, and what day did it get printed on? September 11, 2001.
- One strip from the early 1980s has Garfield predicting that the question to the answers "suicide, dieting, and exercise" is "name three forms of self-abuse." It comes off as a joke, but we now know that dieting and excessive exercise are symptoms of eating disorders.
- Thanks to the strips being written weeks in advance, a controversial "Stupid Day" strip was published on Veteran's day, making it seem like Jim Davis was mocking veterans by comparing them to a spider who was squished after trying to face Garfield.
- A 1934 Mickey Mouse comic had Mickey and Minnie kidnapped by smuggler Bad Pete. One strip here◊ depicts opium being smuggled...disguised as "bath salts".
- One of the more infamous cases of unfortunate timing is a 1963 strip Miss Caroline, which featured a fictionized account of Caroline Kennedy, daughter of then-president John F. Kennedy. The strip began on November 4 of that year, and was cancelled on the 22nd, the day JFK was assassinated. At less than 3 weeks, it probably holds the record for the shortest-run syndicated strip.
- Nero:
- In De Ark van Nero (1952) Nero builds an arc because of a great flood that will put the entire world under water. It later turns out to be All Just a Dream, but only a few months after the story was finished Belgium and the Netherlands were in 1953 indeed hit by a disastrous flood, killing many people in the Netherlands alone.
- In Het Ei van October (1955) Nero's plane crashes into a New York skyscraper, difficult not to think about the 9/11 terrorist attacks since 2001.
- In De Grote Geheimzinnigaard (1993) Nero wishes Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar to the Moon. Later that exact same year Escobar was shot by the police.
- Peanuts:
- Similar to the Desmond Llewellyn incident, Charles Schulz's last strip - which consisted of his announcement of his retirement and an amiable, grateful farewell to his fans - was written four weeks in advance (like most comic strips)... and was printed one day after he died.
- In a 1954 strip, Charlie Brown invites Shermy over to read comic books. The titles include Revolutionary War Comics, War of 1812 Comics, Civil War Comics, World War I Comics, World War II Comics, and Korean War Comics with Charlie saying the next issue has him worried. He and all of America had reason to worry considering what actually happened next...
- Pearls Before Swine:
- One strip featured one of the crocs being disappointed that Steve Irwin's head has never been bitten off. This was published mere months before Irwin's death from a stingray attack.
- There was an entire series of strips about Rat running for city council against a dead guy that were published right when Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash. Some newspapers ended up not running it.
- This◊ political cartoon from 1870, using anthromorphisised countries to depict the situation of Europe before World War I. Now, notice how Germany's hand is resting on Belgium...
- In an early Zits strip Jeremy bemoans the that his generation doesn't have an epic, "where were you?" moment like the Kennedy assassination. Then came September 11th...
