As I understand it, the late*, great Flying Squid founded this sub and posted many fine gems like this, captioned skillfully. You can see a lot of these if you go to the community page and sort by "old." Indeed, that's how I found this one. These 'golden-age' and 'silver-age' comics panels almost write themselves, being from such a different age and having such different sensibilities.
Also, these panels generally do a great job of reinforcing the importance of rule #3, i.e. "comics should be unintentionally funny." I kind of wish today's posters would be a little more heedful of that guideline, as Flying Squid went out of their way to make it a priority. Unfortunately, the listed mods have all been asleep for awhile.
Anyway, I have loads more of these, and am willing to keep posting for a while if this community remains viable. Thank you for everything, FS.
* Haha, just in terms of him suddenly disappearing from the Fediverse. I certainly hope he (or they) are okay in Real Life.
Well put.
The irony being that the 'interest' in question was often something already vastly popular with kids / teenagers / etc, often Japan-based. It became rarely about the original subjects, which were more along the lines of math, science and specialised literature, etc.
Overall, I really don't have a problem with the rapid shift in cultural meaning, but I admit, it took me by surprise, and seemed really weird, as a kid of the early-80's. Oh well. Shizzle happens...