I fondly remember Tumbleweeds when it ran.
The characters seemed to "progress" in that "timelessness" that most comics do.
This strip and Ric O'Shay were the only two western based comic strips that my local newspaper ran back in the day, because for whatever reason they never carried the Lone Ranger revival attempt.
I wonder if a comic with a western foundation could work today?
Every medium needs to expand its genre base to some extent, but that is another discussion for another time.

One of the problems Western strips have had for some time is that most newspapers will, indeed, only carry ONE -- no matter what its focus may be. I THINK it was Stan Lynde who told us years ago that some paper had turned down RICK O'SHAY (which had morphed by then into HIPSHOT, as I recall) because "we already have a Western strip." Which was TUMBLEWEEDS. Which, as you can see, was nothing like RICK O'SHAY.