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Comment by ergothus | Hacker News Reader

For all that it is traditional to bemoan the state of "kids these days" or how the world has gotten worse, there are only two things I truly miss being added to my existence: C&H and The Far Side.

I revisit both every few years to revel in what we do have, and feel lucky to have been in the lifetime when both were at least weekly gifts.

I sometimes wonder where the equivalent items for other generations are, and if I'm simply unable to grok them (I've never understood tintin nor askterix, for example)

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> I sometimes wonder where the equivalent items for other generations are…

My kids watch shows like Steven Universe and Adventure Time, and those often remind me of C&H in that they can be enjoyed on multiple levels. and often mix some pretty deep insight in with the entertainment.

>I revisit both every few years to revel in what we do have, and feel lucky to have been in the lifetime when both were at least weekly gifts.

Compared to the lifetime where kids didn't yet have C&H and The Far Side, but could play outside for hours, unsupervised, and even go around town etc?

...and lived in a society with far more racism and sexism. The world had high odds of being more violent, health was probably worse. (even recent downturns for some groups are small compared to the improvements over generations). We complain about anti-vaxxers today, but we're talking about the struggle to eradicate diseases that were just a fact of life in the past - and a BAD fact.

Wealth inequality and climate change are definitely growing issues, but have not yet overwhelmed the rest.

It's easy to glorify the past if you only look at the healthy and successful people.

We could pick some aspects of the past, instead of taking them all wholesale, you know, like intelligent people.

In which case all the above negatives are neither here nor there.

Or does anyone thing "kids playing outside" is necessarily and always casually correlated with "more racism"?

I think it's easy to ignore all the kids dead/suffering while talking about how nice it was for those that weren't. Kids today are SAFER than in the past - and we do things to bring that about. I loved riding in my grandparents car without seatbelts - I remember cheering them to slam on the brakes so we could fly forward. As fun as that was, giving that up is directly tied to saved lives.

Of course not everything is connected - such as the outside vs racism example you cite. But when people talk about "kids these days", they don't restrict their scope, so I didn't either.

I find it hard to keep following comic strips. For many years in my childhood, the local paper would have a full page of black and white strips each weekday, then 3-4 pages of full colour strips on Saturday (there was no paper on Sunday). It was great for getting a wide spread of what's out there. But then that was cut down to four strips twice a week, then the paper was shuttered.

I have memories of laying on the living room floor with the Saturday comics spread out in front of me and the sun streaming through the window on a winter's morning, and that doesn't compare to reading them on my phone or computer. I want it on paper, and delivered daily, or a weeks-worth once a week. But no such service exists anymore.

It is not to the level of c&h, but the only comic I regularly check is questionable content. I have loved seeing the authors style develop over the years and enjoy the story.

Between Failures is my modern holdout. Its where I went in life just after I was Calvin. Its not high art by any stretch but Wohlenhaus' genuineness just bleeds off every page.

http://betweenfailures.com/

I bought the complete set of Calvin and Hobbes for my (then) 7 year old. He loves it, and it helped develop his wonderful sense of humor. It's still as relevant now as it was 20-30 years ago.

One comic that I'm quite pleased is still being produced is XKCD[1], though it's hard to say how long it'll last.

[1] https://xkcd.com

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