I only just found out Stan Kelly made those cartoons for the onion. I'd assumed he was some chud that started off doing normal less explicitly satirical strips but really leaned into it after realizing people found it funny, but otherwise blissfully unaware who his audience had become.
Half of the humor was looking at one of his panels and debating whether it was actually satire or if :kelly: was just like that.
Rip to my childlike innocence
My take is that they had to take it down because they're supposed to be a satire site and there are many thousands of people that completely and totally agree with this.