A comic strip that was republished in St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Aug. 20, 1913, poses some interesting ideas about the future of newspapers and mass communication – and not all of the theories are far-fetched!

Some of the comic's predictions: newspapers will eventually be delivered by cars and airplanes (both modes of transportation were in their infancy in 1913), technology will allow the news to be updated hourly, and newspapers will eventually be replaced by a sophisticated phonograph machine.

Over the decades, newspapers have managed to survive competition from radio, television, the Internet and smartphones. While the idea of a news phonograph seems kind of silly, it's a prescient notion (for 1913) that mass media technology would continue to become faster, more convenient, and more advanced.