Yeah, it does a pretty good job of upscaling. Here's the entire command I'm using:

convert input.gif -crop 25%x100% +repage +adjoin miff:- | montage - -tile 2x2 -geometry +0+0 miff:- | convert - -resize 200% -colors 256 -depth 8 -filter Box output.png

I don't think it can realistically recover that text though. I can upscale it manually and make out "Copr. 1951 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.", but that's by looking up who owns the copyright and matching it. This is about the best it can do: