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Archive: Hi and Lois

135

More like Hi and Bankrupt, amiright

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Between Friends, 4/20/24

Not to sound like the old person that I literally am, but TV used to be a lot fewer two-hour movie premises stretched out over eight to ten 45-minute episodes and a lot more 85 episodes about friends just kind of hanging out and then, if they were popular enough to get a little budget boost, the occasional Very Special Episode where the gang all went on vacation to Italy together or something like that, to the genuine delight of their fans. Anyway, Between Friends is a strip that’s been running since 1994 and is about the titular friends just kind of hanging out, and Uncle Lumpy and I have posted about 17 times over the past 14 years, so you guys are probably fans of it by now, right? Well, the gals are going to Paris, so get excited!

Beetle Bailey, 4/20/24

This strip got me to Google “mouth taping for snoring” to discover that yes, this is a thing, and yes the photos that you get are all extremely disturbing, like even more than this weird creepy drawing of Sarge. One of the tape brands promoted for this is literally called “Hostage Tape!” Anyway fingers crossed that my wife, who claims that I snore (unproven), doesn’t read the blog today.

Hi and Lois, 4/20/24

Wow, Hi and Lois is leaning into becoming an experimental slice-of-life strip with no punchlines, huh? They could do worse, I guess. In other news, Lois’s business is failing!

162

Walker-Browne transcendence

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Hi and Lois, 4/16/24

Lois’s book group used to be the fun kind, where she and her friends would use the vague excuse of literary pretension to get extremely wine drunk on a weeknight. But some killjoy who “wants to actually talk about the book” or “is feeling her relationship with alcohol slipping out of control” has apparently put a stop to that, so now the ladies have to take truly dire steps to entertain one another, like all sitting around in silence while listening to a voice memo of Hi awkwardly stumbling through some vaguely offensive joke Thirsty told at work, in violation of several provisions in the HR handbook.

Beetle Bailey, 4/16/24

Another way you can tell Beetle isn’t asleep is because he’s half raising his arms into the air, which I guess is supposed to represent some kind of meditative hand mudra but really looks more like he’s doing a Rodney Dangerfield-style “My wife doesn’t love me!” stand-up routine.

Mary Worth, 4/16/24

Since Wilbur has already run into Estelle, I guess his next predictably awkward predicament is running into Iris, though I feel like he sees her often enough (she invited him to her wedding!) that she doesn’t merit the look of true fear in his eyes here. Could his statuesque Colombian lover/grifter Fabiana be in town, looking for one more chance (to steal his money)? Let’s hope!

115

Saturday is for the children

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Hi and Lois, 4/13/24

Two things you have to keep in mind when reading today’s Hi and Lois: (a) despite my many jokes about how Trixie is an eternal baby who’s been an infant for 70 years now, we have to understand that, in the world of the strip, she’s actually less than a year old, and (b) the Flagston family dog is named Dawg. Which means that at some point, possibly quite recently, these kids decided to name their baseball team after the dog, but now that there’s something new and exciting on the scene in terms of cute nonverbal family members, they’re willing to just throw out their old name and take on a new one. It makes me sick and I’m just glad Dawg’s not here to see it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/13/24

Children have long been expected to contribute economically to their households at a pretty young age, particularly in poorer, developing societies. The real unnerving thing here is not that Jughaid’s trying to help pay his way, but the question of where, in a town whose economy is entirely based on criminality, he got the money.

Daddy Daze, 4/13/24

OK, fine, I laughed at this. See, the joke is that the Daddy Daze baby isn’t potty trained, so he doesn’t really see the point of the toilet. He can just poop whenever and wherever he wants, he doesn’t need a special piece of furniture for it! If Marvin tried to pull this off, I’d be furious, but Daddy Daze doesn’t go to the poop joke well too often so I’ll allow it.