Troubling youth, etc.
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Pickles, 8/18/26
Not to sound old, but I do find someone replying “k” to me to be irritating sometimes (and to prove I’m not doing generational discourse, I’ll say these people are as likely to be older than me as they are to be younger). But expecting someone to type out “okay” instead of “ok”? That’s madness. That’s insanity.
B.C., 8/18/26
Speaking of generational discourse, I’m not sure what syndicated newspaper comic strip I would’ve guessed would be the first to go in for “Weren’t things different and better back in the wonderful long-ago year two thousand and twelve?” nostalgia slop for millennials, but I definitely would not have picked B.C.
Hi and Lois, 8/18/26
There are something like 1.5 million real estate agents in the US, according to some cursory Googling, and I don’t think there’s ever been a comic strip dedicated to their specific interests and concerns, so maybe Hi and Lois should lean into that and become primarily realtor-focused. The Roaring ’20s ended and Blondie shifted from being about a cool flapper and her dissolute failson husband to being about a suburban dipshit who’s bad at his white collar job but manages to hold onto it anyway; so too, as America’s economy becomes increasingly asset-based, we must turn away from Hi’s generic office antics and instead focus on his wife’s attempts to facilitate people cashing out their home equity and hoping the money lasts until they die. The creative team will need to do a bit more research on the various dilemmas realtors encounter in their day-to-day life to give the thing a little more variety, though. They can’t all be about hoarders!
52 replies to “Troubling youth, etc.”
Has there ever been a more resigned, hang-dog Realtor® than Lois? Not a good image for the profession, sweetie; buck up!
Lois’s work deals with hoarders while Blondie’s work deals with hors d’oeuvres.
Pickles:
“And here I thought you were texting me ‘Potassium,’ and I couldn’t understand why you would be engaging me about the periodic table!”
H&L: A good tip is to bake something before a showing so the house smells homey. Maybe you could hire Maya from Blondie’s catering business to do a crossover.
Usually these references either make me feel old because something that seems like yesterday was twenty years ago, or they make me feel old because something that seems like twenty years ago was last year and far too much has happened since then. But “‘Gangnam Style’ was 14 years old” seems just right. Thank you, B.C.!
Hi and Lois:
“What do the two of you call the interior decoration style here, anyway?”
” ‘Chip’s Room’ !”
B.C. : There’s no “is” though. It goes “OPPA GANGNAM STYLE”, no “is”.
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Crankshaft : it’s a robot waiter. I guess Josh and C’Thulhu looked ahead when they made their jokes about yesterday’s comic, because they read ahead and know how the rest of the week will play out.
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Frazz : Wait, characters in this strip claim that sometimes they feel uncomfortable over how judgemental they get? …Pull the other one.
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Hi & Lois : this isn’t a hoarder’s room, though. Heck, it’s barely “messy room with too much stuff”. This is like the time the Flagston’s got “snowed in” by a snowfall that barely covered their backyard sandbox and had multiple patches of their lawn visible!
I’m going to do generational discourse about PIckles. How come Sylvia is in her twenties and her mom is over seventy?
Pickles: Well, you seemingly texted your daughter about going for lunch from the next room, so who’s to say who’s really lazy and callous here?
BC I can only assume thst if I go back into the B.C. archives from 2012 I’ll find references to how good things are going, right? No complaints about the kids these days or how we lost our way as a society? Maybe I’ll just check back in around 2040..
H&L That is…accurate. That’s what you do to sell a house. Am I missing a panel or…?
“In my day you would scratch down ‘Oll korrect’ and attach the note to the carrier pigeon, the way the good Lord intended!”
Life was so much better back in 10,012 BC.
H&L: The wife tells her husband that they need to clean out their horde for the sale so it looks like no one lives there. Lois corrects her; “No. Not ‘no one’! Just you two. I already hate you and we only just met.”
Pickles: I have to admit, someone doing the “thumbs up” emoji to my message gets under my skin in a way I can’t fully explain.
B.C.: Nostalgia waits for no man. Good Lord, was 2012 really that long ago?
BC: This is a clever BC, because young people (forty somethings) recognise the Gangnam Style reference, but the strip’s target audience (eighty somethings) can just read this as a reference to the comedic stylings of Jerry Lewis. Hey, sexy LAY-dy!
Also BC: It’s fun to imagine how Johnny Hart would have felt to learn one day his characters would speak Korean and then say the phrase “sexy lady”.
@pugfuggly:
In 2012, we were half-seriously worrying that the World was going to end because the mayans had made no further calendars after that year (or something).
As for 2040….
@Schroduck:
It’s fun to imagine how Johnny Hart would have felt to learn one day his characters would speak Korean
In 2040, the B.C. characters are going to sing “Yeongwonhi kkaejil su ?omneun/Gonna be, Gonna be GOLDEN” instead.
PHANTOM: “When an evil man is at rest….”. Is narrator referring to Chatu/ Cobra or to Freaky/ Vindicta?
Pickles – WtF….
BC – Name That Copralite….
H&L – Well, lived in is one thing, but maybe start by getting rid of the steaming full adult undergarments….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
H&L: As hoarders go, you probably couldn’t get the show to even consider these two. But, in the name of all that is holy, STRAIGHTEN THAT PICTURE!
MW: “That’s great, Wilbur! Now, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to give in to an irrepressible urge to pelt you with tomatoes.”
RMMD: There’s been no money coming in during all of this plotting. I see a dine & dash in the near future.
DtM: If Dennis can dodge juvie and jail, he could have a future as a food critic.
GT: Fencing sounds like it could keep Keri busy figuring out how it’s sexist/racist/ageist/elitist/capitalist/ materialist.
BC — I read that as “Opa is Gangster style” and was mentally composing a strongly worded email to the editor asking that my grandfather’s reputation not be tarnished in this way.
Picky — I guess a “Thumbs Up” emoji is out of the question, then. . .
Hi and Lois: When my brother moved out of his landlord’s house.
He left a bunch of recycling and garbage in the bedroom.
1- Despite the landlord asked to clean it up, he also said in an earlier text “You can just leave the room as-is”
2- The landlord is a con-art, and happened to steal 1500 dollars from my brother (so screw him)
3- When I was helping my brother move the last of his things, I suggested I did help clean up the mess, my brother said not to worry about it, and literally 3 minutes after we left, the realtor showed up. So it would have been impossible to clean it up that fast anyway.
DT: Is this arc a dig at current media / software businesses? The head honcho is a nepo whose video tape old man somehow left him in charge. He is making a mess literally and figuratively. His sloppiness is leaving clues scattered about. His selfishness and ego (worrying about scamming Nyle about videoboards) while his real cash cow, the multimillion dollar ransomware business is largely ignored and left to the workers…
RMMD: The twins discover thinking is hard.
GT: Sure, why not, there must be many of them – Google says, New York, parts of California and Illinois…and now I guess it includes Milford.
FG: How did Ming lose the first time against these guys? Was he sick? Seems like he is wiping them away.
JP: Why would Charlotte be afraid of a woman who angers easily, is violent and suddent appears and disappears? Especially when Neddy is so easily manipulated.
“Oh. I thought you were just skipping two letters. I’ll go return your father’s hood to the closet.”
Wrecks Moregone:
Why is Jeanjane or Janejean cradling her face in both hands without resting her elbows on her knees? Is she trying to protect her neck from turning ochre like Janejean or Jeanjane’s did?
@MKay: I’m not certain if you are referring to fencing items, or the sport fencing.
As I refuse to read Gil Thorp, unless it’s unavoidable (Josh showing it on this blog)
Wrecks Moregone:
They can always scam Wrecks by turning up at his clinic for a consultation, knowing perfectly well that they can then sue him for quackery and negligence.
Oh, wait, that would be logical and legal. Forget it.
Hi and Lois: As someone who just recently moved an agèd relative and is now in the process of clearing out her longtime home for sale, I am here to tell you that yes they can all be about hoarders, especially the ones that save 14-year-old Pickles strips clipped from the dead-tree newspaper.
Of course it’s bad to mutilate the original form of OK! Not only does it celebrate an underappreciated statesman like Martin Van Buren, but it is also a reminder of how at some point Anglos were considering a rational form of spelling!
@Anonymous: My friend very much enjoyed the show about organizing-master Marie Kondo.
I watched the first episode on Netflix, the wife was complaining about what a messy pig-hole their house was.
I was confused, their house actually looked very nice and stable in comparison to mine.
I think BC takes place in an alternate universe where Covid and/or nuclear war were so severe to throw back civilisation to the stone age. Of course things were better 14 years ago!
MW: Dang, I botched a prediction last week, when I said that the end of the Tommy arc meant the Supplemental Nutrition Garden Plot™ had served its purpose and would never be seen again. Though I guess I could argue that the Tommy arc has not ended, just moved to a new phase with Dawn.
“We need to stage your house to sell it. This means we have to fake it being a home full of love and order while being the total opposite. Don’t worry, I am perfectly suited for this task!”
@treetown: FG: I wasn’t reading the strip yet, but the impression that I get is that they presented a united front and Ming was caught off-guard by the alliance and the appearance of Flash and co. This time, he’s amassed his loyalists and is dividing and conquering before our heroes can consolidate their forces.
@Ettorre: Actually, I feel that the idea of being flung back to the Stone Age seems preferable to…. whatever the Hell society is now.
Humanity needs humbling if anything.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – Shouldn’t we give credit to Bobbsey Twin 1 for her refinement in saying “Darn it” instead of “Fuckin’ shit”?
MW: Wilbur’s medication is kicking in. He is now in his docile phase.
@The Rambling Otter: Ack… “Con-Artist” (not that it wasn’t obvious what I meant)
BC: I think we’re all a bit nostalgic for any time in American history between the current moment and the Second World War. However, I DON’T think cavemen remember Korean pop star Psy! Even for Anachronistic Christian Cavement, it’s a bridge too far.
Hi and Lois: Sorry, Homeowner Hortense, you’ve got green slime consuming a wall underneath a crooked picture. You don’t get to take that tone with Lois when she suggests you make the house YOU WANT TO SELL look livable.
Pluggers: If I had three legs, I’d probably be reluctant to go to the gym or any place else for that matter.
Hi and Lois: There was a Chevy Chase film, called “Funny Farm” where the lead character and his wife, move to an idyllic farm in a small town in the middle of the country.
Turns out literally everyone in this town is batshit insane…
When they eventually decide to get the hell out of there before they lose their minds themselves, they have to convince the buyer that there is nothing wrong with the place, so they manage to convince the townspeople to stage the town look as cozy and Norman Rockwell-ian as possible.
Probably a movie I’ll never watch again, especially now that I know Chevy Chase’s true colors.
(But I will always enjoy “Christmas Vacation” it’s too nostalgia-burned into me to hate)
Crankshaft-And it was at that moment that Ed started to notice women’s asses.
RMMD-There is always the flaming bag.
MW-“And it was all thanks to you, Mary.”
@Schroduck: And the Gen X crowd, too young for Jerry Lewis’ heyday but too old to get in on K-pop’s breakthrough into American culture, will think of Weird Al singing the line with Lewis’ inflection on one of his polka medleys. It truly is a multi-generational joke!
BC-BC must be a post-nuclear apocalypse comic.
Has anyone checked in on the Hi & Lois creator? Are they ok? No joke here, I’m dead serious
@The Rambling Otter: Recent years have shown that breaking things up to shake the status quo and teach the haughty a lesson is NOT the way to go
H&L: “Like no one lives here” would be a completely empty house, which Realtors seem to hate almost as much as one filled with too much personal crap. But I guess “like someone lives here, but not a specific someone with their own tastes and personal life, but rather a generic non-entity over which the prospective buyers can project their own ideas of living in the space” wouldn’t fit into the word balloon.
Pickles: Socially anxious person that I am, I hate terse replies like “k” to a text because there are too many possible interpretations, many of them negative (“Are you indifferent? Annoyed? Angry? TELL ME!!!”). Pretty much the only people I will accept it from are my kids, because at their age just the acknowledgement that they’ve seen and read the text is all I’m looking for.
MW: “That’s an odd grip you have on that tomato, Mary. Almost like you’re holding a cellphone.”
MW: The Charterstone condo board has some curiously restrictive rules. Apparently, everyone has to file down their eye teeth.
Sylvia, this is the one time I would accept the reply, “Whatever,” without my slapping hand getting itchy. Seize this moment! Revel in it!
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NO! NO! I can accept anachronisms and ants that are more technologically advanced than humans by millennia, but you can’t establish clearly that your comic about cavemen as commentary on the foibles of modern society definitely takes place in the 21st Century! Stop it!
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I mean, come on. You have a picture hanging at an almost 45 degree angle. There’s “lived in” and then there’s “given up on life.”
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“Whatever” does enrage me. In one of my first ever jobs I became a trainer and I had a trainee reply “Whatever” when I was explaining something to them. The casual dismissiveness of a single word as I was just doing my job helping them learn to do their job stuck with me all these years. I can see how people would react to “k” depending on the context.
“Let’s meet at 6 for the movie.”
“k”
No problem.
“Aunt Mykyla is in the hospital.”
“k”
We’re gonna throw hands.
Pickles: “But expecting someone to type out “okay” instead of “ok”? That’s madness. That’s insanity.” That’s the joke, son. ( / Foghorn Leghorn )
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: If B.C. can use the word “sexy”, surely a more edgy comic like RMMD could at least use “damn”.
DT: They’re…*googles*…a verbal argument or dispute?
Dustin: “And I’d also like you not to remind me that my constant criticism is not useful, and may in fact be contributing to a negative self-image which robs you of your motivation, creating a vicious circle.”
GT: Keri plays football? Sure, they’re non-binary, but they’ve played strictly on girls’ squads up to this point and near as I can recall have never even tried out for a boys’ team, much less something as typically hostile to queer people as football. I think Barajas just wanted to name-drop CTE before going back to the traditional splash panels of young boys giving each other concussions.
JP: “Also because you’ve been so absent from Charlotte’s brief life that you might as well be a stranger to her, so naturally she is hesitant to trust you over the people who she recognizes as trusted and reliable caregivers.”
“….No, I like my idea more.”
Luann: You’re vastly overestimating this baby’s potential, Toni.
MW: “She’s been in her room all afternoon and I’ve heard sobbing through the door, but I’m sure that’s not related. All’s well that ends well!”
H&L – Having sold my mother’s house last year, and in the process of a ‘Big Purge” in order to hopefully sell mine, I find this triggering.
Are we hoarders? No. But… my husband doesn’t believe in digital copies of the things he loves, and boy does he love music and movies! And I guess my spice collection needs to be culled. What I’m saying is, it’s hard to sell your house while you’re living in it – but who can afford two mortgages? Or a mortgage and rent? Or even just rent?
Thanks a lot, Lois, now I’m spiraling!
Hi and Lois:
The married Couple remove all of the junk in the house only to realize how nice it looks, empty and clean. So they decide to keep the house and sell of all their junk.
Lois botched another sale.