Berkeley Breathed had a habit of explaining political problems in a manner that made sense to me during my formative years. My dad had all of his collections, and I would read and re-read them because I thought the characters were funny. Later, I realized that I had a more solid grasp on issues that were outside of my ken from that time than I thought.
Intelligent writing + good characters + satire = winning combination.
I wonder just how Oliver Wendell Jones has done with the massive Internet Age boom. Probably having to deal with arrogant little script-kiddies...