In the “Winnie Winkle” comic strips from the third week of May 1968, Winnie’s son is in trouble with the law. The judge says, “I also see, Miss Winkle, that you are a widow with a very busy career outside the home.” He does not mean this as a compliment. As Winnie listens to the judge, the “thought balloon” above her head is filled with guilt talk.

I revisited “Winnie Winkle” in our newspaper archives this week. In the late ‘60s, Winnie shared space with my other favorite strips – “Rex Morgan, M.D.” and “Judge Parker.”

I read comic strips every day in my childhood and teen years but stopped entirely when I went to college in 1973. Now, 34 years later, I’ve picked up the comic strip habit once more. I’m hooked on “For Better Or For Worse” and “Sally Forth” and “Funky Winkerbean.”

I had no idea why I resumed this habit. In an e-mail conversation with Alan Gardner, editor of the Daily Cartoonist, an industry news blog for professional cartoonists, we explored some possible reasons.

“I’ve not heard of a case where someone rediscovered the comics after such a prolonged absence. In most of my correspondence with comic page readers, they usually started reading the comics young and kept up on their favorites much like one would keep an old friend,” Gardner wrote.

Last December, when “Judge Parker” used a substitute artist while the regular artist recovered from a car accident, Gardner’s blog became vent central for unhappy “Judge Parker” fans. So he conducted a survey.

Gardner discovered that “the average length of time that these individuals have been reading JP is 27 years. One hundred percent of them read the comics every day. When asked what comics mean to them, the reoccurring themes were that comics were a morning ritual, a break from the gloom and doom of the news sections, and that they have come to know the characters and wanted to see where story lines would take them.

All those reasons resonated with me. Ritual. Ah yes. Children thrive on it. The baths and books before bed, the breakfast of little champions in the morning. Routine and ritual help children feel safe in a world bigger and scarier than they can manage without dependable tethers.

The adult world is pretty scary right now, and we adults need routine, too. Comic strips are once again part of my morning ritual. It’s grounding.

Comics provide a break from the gloom and doom of the news sections. For sure. If I didn’t work for a newspaper, I would take periodic break days from all news reports. No matter how consistently this newspaper and other media balance the bad news with the good, the gloom and doom predominate. Crisis everyday, everywhere, everywhichway.

Most people, though, live their daily lives absorbed in more personal headlines. They work out issues with spouses and bosses, snuggle with pets and babies, carpool with life’s smaller crises. The world outside their personal lives explodes with wars and turmoil. Elected leaders do wise as well as stupid things. The economy races up and down. Yet their private narratives move forward, often with little connection to breaking news.

Modern mothers – those who work inside and outside the home – have guilt talk in their thought balloons when their teens get in trouble, just as Winnie Winkle did nearly four decades ago. Comic strips reflect the daily reality where most of us dwell.

A character in “For Better Or For Worse” is mending from a broken heart. Another character in “Funky Winkerbean” is battling cancer. Sally Forth’s mother is driving her crazy. I have come to care about all these folks, and as silly as it seems in our tense time of war and terror, it’s comforting to ponder where their story lines will take them.