Cranky Wednesday
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Hi and Lois, 3/18/26
Look, we’re all adults here. Well, maybe some of you are weird kids with grown-up taste in ironic internet websites, I don’t know, but my point is, let’s ignore Trixie’s insipid heliocentric rambling and turn our eyes to the fun little domestic drama in panel one. Check out how beaten down and defeated Hi looks; that’s a man who has passive-aggressively talked about high energy bills for weeks even as time slips further and further into air conditioning season; and rather than be gracious after he’s given in, Lois is doing a little pantomime of concern: “Oh, but can we afford it, Hi? Will we need to dip into the children’s college fund, in order to keep the temperature in here below 80 degrees?” My own natural thrift puts me tentatively on Hi’s side here, but they could be taking other steps, like following Trixie’s lead and pricing solar panels, or at least taking off their sweaters.
Judge Parker, 3/18/26
One of my least favorite little narrative devices is when some character makes a daring and self-destructive move in order to achieve some goal, and then comes out on top against all odds, but when he does, announces that he understands he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. This happens more often than you’d think, and it’s especially annoying in cases like this, when Randy is like “I’m a bad person! I’ve suffered nothing for my choices and actually had a pretty cool time getting broken out of prison by my hot, murderous wife, but I just want to apologize for my wrongs! Probably my daughter doesn’t love me anymore, right? Whatever, she’s someone else’s problem now, which, uh, I again acknowledge I should feel bad about.”
Luann, 3/18/26
A thing about the comic strip Luann is that sometimes you’ll get a whole week’s worth of strips where one character just passive-aggressively talks shit about another character within earshot of them. And the shit-talker is the one you’re supposed to be sympathetic towards. It’s wild stuff!
45 replies to “Cranky Wednesday”
Good skill
Curtis: “What about Joe Jackson Middle School?” “The baseball player or the musician?”
“R.E.A.R. test” makes it sound like the Luann cast finally discovered butt stuff, but in true Luann fashion they’re just going to innuendo their way around it for the next several weeks.
H&L Ha, its funny because Trixie is aware of the perils of global warming! Just look at her concerned face: she knows that there’s no future for her!
JP Just imagining the colorist looking at this scene and thinking “That phone is probably gold, right? They seem like the type…”
Luann and Intelligent Life are looking more and more similar I’m not sure to whom that’s more insulting.
H&L: The family could just all sit on the floor by the window.
H&L: Is this supposed to be an episode of sci-fi where we feel sympathy for a child who will never grow up because she realizes that there might be a more sinister aspect to what she perceives as a friendly beam of light from a sun in the early stages of going nova? That, or two dull suburbanites discussing setting the thermostat? I’m going with the former.
Luann: I hate today’s strip for two reasons – first, for being so weird that I felt compelled to look back to work out what the hell is going on (Why is everyone writing on paper and talking about what type of animal they are? Why is R.E.A.R. stamped on the book cover? Are they playing some weird furry sex version of D&D?), and secondly for being a complete let down when I actually went back to check. It’s so dull I’m not even going to bother explaining it, which is not how you should describe the set-up to the phrase “I’m a Neon-Cliff-Fox and I’m good at rappelling!”
H&L Being winter-to-spring in the US, I figured Hi noticed the spring sun was keeping things warm and they didn’t need the furnace as much, while Lois is abshed that she didn’t do so earlier and has been wasting energy. Of course, setting the furnace at 65F instead of 70 isn’t going to change anything if the house is at 72, it will not-turn-on just as much. But they don’t seem bright enough to have figured that out, as they are presumably the audience for their energy company’s tips newsletter (have you tried turning off the lights when you leave a room to reduce your bill? and there are these things called LED bulbs…)
Luann : I like how
a) Les has now been given a full book version that contains all the possible results for this personality quiz, something he definitely did not receive last week, only because otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense for Bets to know all those different results off the top of her head
b) this strip commits to the “vaguely gross, vaguely sexual “”””innuendo”””” ” bit with Gunther’s result, complete with Les spelling it out that our minds are supposed to go there.
Also pretty sure it was supposed to be PINK-STARFISH-MOLE, then they realised Spongebob could suec) the strip breaks the [COLOR-TERRAIN FEATURE-ANIMAL] naming scheme rule THREE TIMES here; sponge is an animal, sessile is a characteristic of a living thing (and REALLY stands out due to being an adjective), and iktomi isn’t actually an animal species, but a mythological figure?
they couldn’t do something like Pyrite-Morass-Remora or something?d) Les’ results are made up of significantly more obscure vocabulary than ANY of the other results from this we’ve seen so far, entirely for the purpose of this “joke”
e) Either the booklet Les is sharing is where he actually filled out is the actual quiz sheet he used (where he stupidly honestly answered before quickly (and transparently) changing his answers to match Tara), or Bets is picking the most insulting, negative result just to gratuitously insult Les.
e.1) The former explanation implies that if you answered “playing video games” to “which of these activities seems the most fun to you?”, you are on your way to getting the worst possible result.
Who wrote this quiz, Ed “DustinDad” Kudlick!?f) this strip has an actual character who is a psychology student (and prides herself about it), and puts the characters in situations where they have to discuss psychology, and somehow NEVER makes those two things overlap! So now, randomly Bets is an expert in this personality quiz despite being a BUSINESS major
which this strip treats as code for “being greedy”I like a lot of things about this strip
…Know what I don’t like, though? Myself, whenever I type so many words about FREAKIN’ LUANN…Judge Parker:
“By the way, ‘Pops,’ are you drinking right now?”
I don’t think the writers of Hi & Lois quite understand the purpose or function of a green screen.
Luann:
All three of you are wrong. Each of you is a tardigrade.
H and L:
“Sunbeam, why are you named after a vintage electric razor?”
H&L: “Or commit suicide…I’m open to either option.”
@Bob Tice: Tardigrades are vastly cooler than any Luann character could ever aspire to be.
@Anonymous: On your last point, it seriously boggles my mind that the Evansii never did the obvious thing and paired off Bernice and Gunther. They’re both frigid, self-righteous scolds who will insult people right to their face and somehow never get punched in said face for doing so. They should be a match made in heaven.
The Evansii’s obtuseness is truly superhuman.
Phantom:
“You guys want some juicy gossip? — I hear that Worubu is repurposing himself as Colonel ‘Sanders,’ and hawking KFC like Reba McIntire!”
JP:
Another strip, another day in which everyone depicted has a pained expression for one reason or another.
@Ken:
You know, you’re right. And I’ve been beside myself since that group of them crashed on the surface of the moon on April 11, 2019 — I hope they’re okay!
@Dan: As obnoxiously Christian as the world of Luann is, I’m pretty sure all the young adults are into butt stuff. Gotta preserve that virginity, you know!
@The Quiet Man: The Evansii’s obtuseness is truly superhuman.
And yet, they don’t hold a candle to Batton Thomas in that department.
Hi and Lois: Panel One: Accidental Renaissance? Accidental Renaissance, or as close to Accidental Renaissance as you can get with flat colors, no shadowing and blob-like human form. It’s a masterpiece!
@Banana Jr. 6000: I’ve always thought of the Evanses as generic Baptist-y evangelicals, but it probably makes more sense if they were hard-shell Calvinists following the TULIP model:
– Total Depravity: Everybody’s an asshole in the Luannverse
– Unconditional Election: Little Miss Inner Beauty is the designated heroine, Tiffany (or Steph) have been rejected
– Limited Atonement: Only the virgins are saved; all others are parents and/or have puffy lips
– Irresistable Grace: How else do you explain Luann, Gunther or ((shudder)) Brad having romantic partners?
– Perseverance of the Saints: That’s what we go through, day in and day out, reading this crap.
Hi and Lois: “Sunbeam turned up the thermostat outside.” It’s a short road from here to “Sunbeam is angry and demands a sacrifice.”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Can I interest you in a selection of moody throwaway panels?
FC: Did Bil and Thel have an argument before he drew this one? She looks particularly frumpy today.
MW: Mary better lay off the Reanimator Matcha drink. She already looks like she’s in her early forties. If she finishes that cup, she’ll look younger than Toby.
BG&SS: Surely the $1 bill isn’t used for making change in Hootin’ Holler, what with it probably being the highest denomination of paper money circulating there, not counting Confederate Grayback notes.
In panel 2, Luann recreates the cover of Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Trilogy, the Luann of Emerson Lake and Palmer albums.
JP: Alan’s at the stage of dementia where he only remembers Randy as a child.
“Who is this guy, again?”
“It was foolish of me to go off to find April when it’s only mid-March! But the lure of spring break was too strong, Dad. When they find my bones, bury me at the beach in Cabo, so the hot girls can keep walking all over me.”
Luann – I’ve never been a huge fan of the idea that a single personality test could capture and quantify a person into a neat little bundle. But I’m such an ENFP, Enneagram 7, DiSC Profile i, Color Season Deep Winter, Scorpio, Hufflepuff that of course I’d say that.
CS – I love how Skip is looking right at us as if to say “can you believe he’s still talking about all this crap? And can you believe I’m still recording him?”
MW-“I’ve seen H@rvey’s situation before.” Mostly with Wilbur.
MW-“Challenge accepted,” Mary declares, “I shall reunite H@rvey and his daughter.”
FC-Then Thel whacks the book across Dolly’s face.
Beetle Bailey-“Is Beetle going to take you to see the Beatles?”
JP-Today the role of Randy shall be played by Mud Mountain.
JP-Actually Randy has several excuses for leaving that annoying child behind but he doesn’t want to be the bad guy.
@Weaselboy: Far too many CS characters exist solely to break the fourth wall and smirk at the reader, to say “isn’t the writer of this strip a clever guy”.
If you think Hi and Lois look concerned now, wait until Trixie starts becoming verbal.
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Judge Parker’s look of disgust at Randy’s beard? 10/10, no notes.
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Really Easy Asshole Ratification test?
But seriously, is a “R.E.A.R. test” something people are supposed to know about?
RMMD — “No Choices, No Excuses: The Randy Parker Story”
Marvin is impressed the instructor can lift his leg that high to piss on things? This kid needs psychiatric care toot suite.
MW: Could it be that Mary herself is about to LEARN that some people on the planet actually should be RESISTANT to her advice?
Nah. That would be like matter and antimatter colliding.
@Ken: At which point I would disagree with them.
MW meta-comment: Every time I visit Comics Kingdom, I wonder why the banner for Mary Worth shows Zak and Iris instead of the title character.
MW comment: It’s vaguely creepy the way Mary and Toby are talking about HH without making eye contact. Maybe not creepy, more like two criminals standing on a street corner, not looking at each other as they discuss plans for their next murder.
H&L – As someone that was in college listening to hip hop in the early 2000s I’m glad that strip didn’t go where my mind went after it started, “It’s getting hot in here”
@Tabby Lavalamp: The “R.E.A.R. test” was mentioned in the dialogue a couple of times last week, particularly in the March 9 strip, which used it for some mild butt humor.
Instructor: “Today we’ll be doing a R.E.A.R. analysis.”
(Text written on whiteboard: “Career Paths: Relative Evaluation And Rating”)
Luann: “Not my rear, we won’t.”
Tara: “If we’re rating relatives, mine get F’s.”
Les: “Ditto. I do have a nice rear, though.”
@Bob Tice: Please, tardigrades are adorable.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Well, it’s the test Mrs Fogarty administered to the “career path” class last week… so it’s assuming you’re religiously following Luann
*every day of every week, even when it’s not featured by Josh.*what a shameful thing I am confessing to!