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Shoe, 8/24/25

You of course all know that one of my favorite things to grapple with in every Shoe strip that’s even vaguely bird-related is “Did the Shoe creative team remember that all their characters are birds when they wrote this joke?” Many of the regular bird characters have bird-related names — P. Martin Shoemaker, Cosmo Fishhawk, Loon, Roz Specklehen, Muffy Hollandaise … uh, well, not her, but you get the point — so for this one, I’m concluding that all these celebrities are not the ones we know and love but are their aviamorphic counterparts in the Shoeniverse. “Steven Seagull” was the tipoff. Anyway, no idea what The Birds was about in this reality, but I’m assuming it portrayed birds in a much more positive light than Hitchcock did in his frankly offensive anti-bird polemic.

Luann, 8/24/25

Years ago, the whole point of Tiffany within the larger narrative of Luann was that she was a hot, vapid, scheming cheerleader who bullied and belittled our heroine, Luann, and who got made fun of in turn behind her back. After a while they decided that maybe it was kind of grim to have one of the strip’s main characters be that kind of caricature, so they gave her depth and positive qualities and such, and then I sort of checked out of reading Luann for like a decade, but now I’m back and … I guess we have a new one of those? And she’s Tiffany’s college roommate? Interesting that this is a comic strip ecological niche that simply must be filled. More on this story, such as whether I bother to learn this person’s name, as it develops.

Hi and Lois, 8/24/25

Honestly I think the thing that actually works here is that instead of just texting each other, they’ve snuck off from their respective homes to the secluded woods where they can presumably fool around; the handwritten letter is I’m sure nice but probably isn’t the most important factor. Anyway, Chip, maybe don’t talk about your mom too much right now.

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The Lockhorns, 8/23/25

Look, I don’t know how they can make it any more obvious that the Lockhorns are millennials. Today’s panel deploys one of the most joyless ways to hammer the point home, just having Loretta doing a marginally cool catchphrase from 2010 or whatever. Is she going to talk about heckin’ doggos next? Will Leroy extol the epicness of bacon? They’re not even antagonizing each other today. Remember when this strip was about how much they disliked each other? We need to recapture that spirit, and if that means shifting the Lockhorns further down the timestream to the unmoored nihilism of Gen Z, I say do it.

Hi and Lois, 8/23/25

Thirsty, no! Liquor before beer, never fear … beer before liquor, never sicker! I guess he’s already sick, though. (His sickness is the serious disease of alcoholism.)

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Slightly shorter list of comments of the week for a somewhat shorter week on my part, but this week’s top comment still delivers the laffs!

“Really liking that accusing look on Dennis’s face. ‘I was promised some kind of circus freak who lived like a dog, and instead I get this boring suburban schmoe? Boo! Zero stars!’” –pugfuggly

As do the very funny runners up!

“Or, you know, just throw out that tacky cheap pink vase, Lois. There is no way Hi is going to use the Japanese art of kintsugi to bring new life to it. At best he’ll slather on some Gorilla glue and you’ll constantly have to remember to turn that side to the wall.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Big props to yesterday’s Judge Parker for resolving a plot hole with ‘There was probably an entry code for the vacation home in the stuff Glen sent me, which I didn’t read.’ This rings true to life! On the other hand ‘The CIA agent has a pierced septum’ is probably also true to life and I hate it.” –matt w

“Good resume. But she said she wanted to learn from me, and I wouldn’t like to have any employee with low enough self esteem to actually respect me. Have you seen our record?” –Philip

“Since there are no canals in Hartlepool (research consisting solely of scanning the Wikipedia page of that fair city and not seeing any photos of them), I’d like to think that Andy has fallen into an open sewage ditch. Don’t worry, nothing can kill him!” –But What Do I Know?

“Ever since our AI overlords banished women to an infinite plane that just contains kitchen appliances, I don’t get to talk to my friends much anyway. Who knew that this was how Gamergate was going to end?” –Voshkod

“Yeah, right. You didn’t, Naomi. Olive saved her life. You have nice hair, though.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“I might be wrong but I think this whole story line is the plot to Madame Web.” –LTJpezcore1

“Heathcliff’s sign is a command, people! You are BLOWING this!” –A Grave Mind

“It’s late, we should be going. Not that sitting here on your sectional and staring at each other all night wasn’t fun, but we were kind of hoping you would offer us some drinks or snacks or entertainment or conversation. Still, your cat’s writing demonstration was a real surprise, so the evening wasn’t a total loss.” –BigTed

“Heathcliff is holding the sign facing away from the group. The other side says ‘Fuck you people.’” –The Rambling Otter

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