Monday is for heroes, sort of
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Hi and Lois, 5/25/26
I feel like I’m one of the last pedants holding onto this fact, but Memorial Day is not for remembering all who served; that’s Veterans Day, in November. Memorial Day is for remembering all who died while serving. Died like the food you’re shoving down your gullet, Thirsty. Like all life forms, and like the modern nation-state, we feed on death!
Luann, 5/25/26
“Hop on it! By ‘it’ I mean your wife, who also works here, whom I urge you to mount and inseminate. Remember, climate change will make our jobs harder and harder, until we lose the battle against fire and society collapses!”
Gil Thorp, 5/25/26
Hey, remember all those teen golfers we met? Well, they died. They fuckin’ died. But the important thing is that Gil’s team beat the team coached by his ex-wife, so their sacrifice was not in vain.
58 replies to “Monday is for heroes, sort of”
Luann: Firefighters 1 and 2 already did a mutual hand transplant.
No Dawn no they don’t, I mean look at your Father.
Good news from Questionable Malcontent:
That wriggling alien brain parasite attached to Anh’s head has finally met its demise.
Wary Morth:
No, Dusk, your dad isn’t a demon. Hell has higher standards than to employ *him*.
Wrecks Moregone:
If this story goes any faster it’ll break the sound barrier and we won’t hear a word the characters are saying.
H and L:
“And while I’m at it, quaffing this beer, I’d also like to thank all the extraterrestrials who featured in the ‘Twilight Zone’ episode To Serve Man!”
Thirsty’s wife isn’t there, did he just see Hi drinking in his backyard and climb the fence to join in? Lois does seem to be passive-aggressively reminding him to have some food with his beer.
Luann-Oh boy! Two weeks of Brad and Toni babymaking drama!
Hi and Lois-“Today we remember my brother Beetle Bailey who has been trapped in the military for over seventy years.”
RMMD-Gonna need to see some id on that redhead. They aged rather rapidly between two panels.
MW-Dawn then goes back to her apartment to find a disheveled and passed out from drinking fermented mayonnaise Wilbur.
Gil Thorp-Never forget the Great Golf Massacre of ’26.
GT: The way the writing in this strip has been going Gil being the last astronaut left alive on an alien planet is totally plausible.
Luann — No clunky wordplay about a little Alf? Do better, Evansii!
Besides Memorial Day, it’s twenty years ago today since the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth” and none of the predictions for the past two decades have come true. But at least it gave Josh something to snark on “Luann” over so it wasn’t a complete failure.
Hi and Lois: Everyone seems really happy that Thirsty is there, but not his wife. I guess that’s what happens when you have one of those all-beer, no-food cookouts.
Slylock Fox: Did Slylock really need to match those “unique” toe prints to some sort of database? Slick Smitty is pretty much the only possible perpetrator who even has toes. Just call in the usual suspect (“Sapiens, Homo”).
Rex Morgan: “Do you want more coffee, odd-looking person who might be either 12 or 40? I think it’s fine if you drink some, maybe or maybe not.”
H and L:
“It sure is fun, getting ready to enjoy a meal without any utensils whatosever!”
H&L: So there’s no actual food, just a couple of middle-aged men drinking beer, one of whom didn’t even bother to bring his wife along. Happy Memorial Day!
Remember when Hi and Lois felt they had to hide drinking alcohol in front of the kids? You might joke that they have stopped caring, but I sincerely believe it is a good thing. This American Puritanical attitude towards alcohol consumption feeds both neurosis and alcoholism, twins in destiny. Show your kids that there is a responsible way to indulge in alcohol, like Mediterranean people do!
H and L:
“Say, what happened to Irma, anyway, Thirsty? — why isn’t she here?”
“Oh, she changed her last name to ‘La Douce,’ and she’s walking the streets of Flagston!”
When “Hi & Lois” started in the 1950s, the implications was that Hi was a WWII veteran, whose domestic foibles were nothing compared to the horror of total war and crimes against humanity. These days someone like Hi would have never served in the military and neither would Thirsty. Probably Hi should make a toast to Beetle, who is serving right now, but he is forgotten, just like Washington has forgotten our heroes. Time for Halftrack and Sarge to prepare a coup!
Luann:
“…as will the placard we’re going to install bearing the stirring words of the late Johnnie Cochran: ‘You must leave the station for a peregrination if there’s a conflagration‘ !”
GT – I for one am excited to see the teens of this strip forced to become the latest participants in the Battle Royale program.
GT: Did Gil serve in some still-canon-but-utterly-ignored-now backstory, or is today’s strip stolen valour?
JP Well, actually, he judges – that is uses his judgment on – everyone. That’s how it works. If he knows you, he’s got more information and that can lead to trust despite a blunt fact like a prison record, but for Ann right now all his brain is doing is playing the odds and based on that his reaction ain’t crazy!
Phantom Psst! When tracing your references don’t forget to draw in the front chair legs after plopping down your “dude sprawled on the floor beneath” bit. Also try to get the relative scale of “dude on the floor” and “airplane seats” right, not only will the precariously-attached seats fail in any rough landing (let alone a crash situation!) but rich folks who can afford a private jet expect to have seats where they don’t have to dangle their legs in midair when they sit!
“Say, you ever read the story of how King David urged his soldier Uriah the Hittite to go home and sleep with his wife Bathsheba so he wouldn’t realize she was cheating on him with David himself? And when that failed, David set him up in an impossible battle? Why? No reason!”
Is dying for your country “making the ultimate sacrifice”? What about offering your heart to keep the sun sated and the world rolling!? But I guess in these politically correct times, you can no longer talk of religion!
RMMD:
“How about you sign my teeth, Miss Lorna? That way , people will notice it whenever I flash my coprophagous grin, which, as you can see, is frequently!”
In Saturday’s strip, Irma went to visit her mother and asked Lois to watch Thirsty while she was gone. Hi & Lois is demonstrating object permanence!
@Ettorre: Trixie does that.
RMMD:
“Do you want more coffee?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve got to run off to make my audition for the lead role in the Glenwood Players’ forthcoming musical production Carrot Top: The Early Years!”
That’s fantastic news about Josh’s novel, I’ve been meaning to read it. Newspaper strips are a fascinating and often overlooked art form.
RMMD – For Lorna, the polite thing to do would be to compliment Alfred E. Neuman on his successful orthodontia.
Bot at #27 – Does Josh have some hidden white text or some comment in the webpage source that forces any AI bot to reference the novel for easy identification?
Luann: Glad to see Dustin found a stable job finally
@StripEye:
Spam alert on #27!
H&L Turns out that this isnt actually about Memorial Day, but about the wives who serve their families every day. No wonder why Thirsty’s wife couldn’t bring herself to attend.
Luann: Really enjoying the haunted look on Brad’s face.Hes going to have to study those pamphlets again…
GT “And thanks for leaving me this snazzy uniform! It’s not stolen valor if I just use it to impress chicks, right?
MW: Does Mary’s garden now extend all the way to Lost Balloonist Park? I appreciate returning the condo parking lot and grounds to green space but not sure how the other residents will respond to her redirecting Charterstone’s water supply to her irrigation system.
H&L: Wherever Irma may be, I have not a doubt that she’s happier than if she were with her embarrassment of a spouse.
MW: So, Dawn, rather than get a REAL job, or even do the simple task of putting away the groceries, you’ve decided to become the Virtue Czar.
GT: I just assume Barajas comes from a country where all males enter service upon reaching 18 years of age and supposes Gil served too.
MW: Dawn is spying on Tommy Beedie from behind a tree. Wilbur spied on Iris Beedie from behing a bush. Like father, like daughter.
“Just like civilians in the distant past had to make sacrifices in times of war, we – the McHiandloises (or whatever our last name is, this is my third beer and I can’t be bothered searching) – must eat burgers bereft of condiments or side dishes to keep our table as empty as the promise of peace.”
***
“Chief, after we get the new truck can we look into getting a table with a third side so we don’t need to keep sitting in a row like this?”
***
Anyway (and this is true), as a Canadian, I have a dentist appointment today. Enjoy your day off while I have someone I barely know stick things into my mouth.
Hagar: Even Hagar has to admit that making the ‘okay’ sign with one hand and running his middle finger back and forth through it with the other meaning to bring more dicks, i. e. men, is a little obtuse.
@Hibbleton: From the panels we’ve seen, Mary’s “garden” consists of four raised beds, each about a square yard, with two trellis arches, all surrounded by grass. I’m thinking this isn’t a threat to the local supermarket.
@CanuckDownSouth: Well, he’s wearing an old-school English postal carrier uniform, so there’s that.
FC: Jeffy asks his mom how they’re doing financially so he’ll know whether to pray to Baal or the regular God.
BB: The only strip to feature life in uniform decides to honor a dog on Memorial day. Probably the most respectful scene they could show all characters considered.
@Ettorre: I would refer you to this chart on ethnic origins in my home state. We’re Germans, and we drink like it, dammit!
The field of Kubrickian monoliths, each having suffered a head injury, is honored by Gil Throp.
Hi and Lois: If it’s any comfort, Josh, you’re not the only one: I occasionally have to remind my hospice coworkers that Memorial Day is not the right time to honor veterans on our service. They look at me funny when I tell them we need to do nothing for Memorial Day, nothing!
@BigTed: Slick Smitty is pretty much the only possible perpetrator who even has toes.
The last time the toe print thing was a solution, the perpetrator was Harry Ape, and we learned that gorillas have toe prints too!
@CanuckDownSouth:
GT: Did Gil serve in some still-canon-but-utterly-ignored-now backstory, or is today’s strip stolen valour?
Gil is canonically a former USMC pilot but once a Marine, always a Marine.
DT: Since none of the people shooting are actually sighting their weapons, I supposed there was no reference photo for the artist to use!
Dustin: Wasn’t this how Beetle Bailey ended up in the army?
Gil Thorp: “Taylor, Callaway, Srixon, you’ve been shanked, you’ve been hooked, God help you, you’ve been sliced. We’ve buried you where you fell in honor of your sacrifice defending our way of life against butch golfers and other threats. There will be no more chunks, no more divots on this hallowed green. May God bless you. We, the few, the proud, and also the Titleists, will take it from here.”
Wizard of Id: Who is next to the king? If you’re going to parody the “run government like a business” fools, do it in front of the true believers.
Gasoline Alley: Gertie may not be an RN but she has the “wake up patient to give them a med they don’t need right now” bit down pat.
MW: A sub and a bottle of pop? Tune in next time when Slick Smitty takes candy from a baby!
Because he’s spiraling, and it’s really affecting his professional ambition.
Blondie: “If you’re trying to not line them up over any of your bikini spots, it’s a great design.”
Dustin: There are plenty of obvious, replacement-level comics for Memorial Day, but this one certainly goes in a different direction.
“And you get two holidays dedicated to you!”
“Wow, I get two days of adulation and praise?”
“Well…one’s sort of on the installment plan.”
FC: Good question, Jeffy. Thel knows that you’re still young enough to be put in the Baby Box at the church, so make this prayer count.
Ah, what the heck. I do a podcast on holiday, y’all, “Happy Horrordays (To You).”
Josh is exactly right, Memorial Day is for remembering people who died in wars. So is Kipling’s story, “The Gardener.” Enjoy!
@Hibbleton: That would be the U.S. (he’s from Arizona), so not far off!
Hi and Lois: Where’s Irma? Is Thirsty the kind of guy who forces his wife to serve him in the kitchen while he quaffs beer after beer, celebrating the service of our nation’s heroes?
That’s a big “yes,” I’m afraid.
Luann: For a strip that downplays the existence of sex, they sure emphasize procreation.
@CanuckDownSouth: GT: I think he’s a WWII vet, Army Air Force maybe?
GT – Every Memorial Day, Gil cosplays as Chairman Mao and pays his respects to the glorious war dead of the Chinese Red Army. Soon, comrades, someday soon we will finally defeat the capitalist running dogs of Valley Tech!
Don Abundio, translated:
“How do you feel about ‘hippies,’ Don Abundio?”
“They’re dirty bums”
“That freeloader should cut his hair and get a job”
[Sign: NATIONAL PARK]
@Lauralot: MW: Dawn is spying on Tommy Beedie from behind a tree. Wilbur spied on Iris Beedie from behing a bush. Like father, like daughter.
***
I’m guessing Dawn has a HUGE bush.
@Hibbleton: Somehow, AI comes off as obnoxiously passive-aggressive.