Early Installment Weirdness/Newspaper Comics


 * Susie Derkins asks Calvin to cheat and give her the answer to a test question in an early strip of Calvin and Hobbes. After this, she is depicted as serious student who resists Calvin's constant requests to help him cheat in any way.
 * In the early strips with Susie's first appearances, Calvin and her both seem to internally acknowledge that they have crushes on each other underneath their insults and animosity. This soon changes with Susie switching her affection to Hobbes and Calvin panicking over even the thought that Susie likes him.
 * Calvin catches Hobbes in a tiger trap in the first comics, and this was supposed to be how they first met. A later strip near the end of the comic's run, however, had Hobbes recall Calvin spent most of his infancy "burping up", hinting he had been with Calvin for much longer.
 * Of course, given the overall tone of the strip, it's possible that Hobbes is just trying to be a wise guy.
 * Garfield's wildly different appearance in the early years of the strip: much fatter, more cat-like, and strictly quadrupedal. There's also Jon's claim to be a cartoonist in the very first strip, which is rarely mentioned again, and the character of Lyman (Jon's roommate and Odie's original owner) who slowly vanishes entirely without explanation.
 * Dilbert was initially focused on the personal life of Dilbert and Dogbert, and was largely Garfield except with a dog who can talk. The office-based strips came a few months later and even then only occasionally appeared. They more or less took over a few years later.
 * Thimble Theater used to be about Ham Gravy and his manager until they hired a certain sailor named Popeye.
 * Rick O'Shay was a humor comic set in the 1950s and 60s until it transitioned to the 1860s and, while still having comedic elements, turned into more of a western adventure/drama strip with more realistic art.