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Blondie started out about Blondie, and not Dagwood.
Blondie was a hot flapper, not very conservative at the time.

The unlikely titled ‘Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend,’ preceded by the silly Sneezer, let to the masterpiece of comics, Nemo in Slumberland. It was what we’d call ‘diverse’ today.

Blondie started out about Blondie, and not Dagwood. Blondie was a hot flapper, not very conservative at the time.

That's an interesting point about the change in direction of the strip, though it happened quite early in its run, as did Beetle Bailey's.

Blondie is still a major character in the strip, compared to Barney Google who rarely shows up in his own strip. Again, by "conservative" I don't mean political values.

I mean that once the strip is set, certain things don't change even though time continues to pass, including things taht are anachronisms today. This is triply true in strips where the characters don't age (which is most of them). Blondie and Dagwood aged until their kids were teens. Charlie Brown and company aged until they settled in at about 6-8 years old. Gasoline Alley ages periodically and has changed more than most, EXCEPT for the characters who don't age (as far as I know, Becky the mule is still pulling a cart!). The rest are pretty static, and even Blondie has to forget the original story about Dagwood foregoing his massive inheritance from the Bumstead Railworks when he married the flapper Blondie Boopadoop, proving it was true love for both of them.

You can pick up a Beetle Bailey comic strip from 1953, and it could have been reprinted with no changes in 2018, and (in most cases) vice versa.

One thing that catalyzed both Blondie's and Fritzi Ritz' change from a drama/romance/light comedy strip to straight comedy was the depression at first, and later the availability of soap operas on radio and television to provide those kinds of stories. Brenda Starr and Winnie Winkle would soldier on for a few more decades, but the gal centered strips (not county cartoony gag strips like Cathy and Sally Forth) mostly died out as a genre because updating didn't work.