Mr. Foofram looks so defeated. He could fire Hi for this but what’s the point
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Hi and Lois, 10/12/26
I admit that, as a non-kid-haver, I’m not fully up on the ages at which kids are allowed to be left on their own and/or put in charge of their siblings these days, and I’m given to understand that this has shifted since I was a teen, but still: Chip is old enough to watch his siblings, right? Or at least not be dragged along to the office with other kids? This question sent me down a rabbit hole trying to figure out Chip’s age and the amount of freedom his parents allow him, and I’m here to report that he’s learning how to drive, goes on unsupervised dates to the movies, and takes his little brother along on walks around the neighborhood, which you’d think would be enough evidence to make today’s antics unnecessary. On the other hand, at one point he told Dot about Studio 54, which might’ve led to her asking some questions that ultimately resulted in a lot of privileges being revoked.
Judge Parker, 10/12/26
Oh, hey, remember how April was going to pick up Charlotte and take her to school? Well, she never showed up, and the reason why is that she got scooped up off the street and taken to a CIA black site somewhere. I guess they’re calling black sites “regional offices” now, to present a more professional, more chill, less terrifying kind of branding to the outside world. That’s not how most of the US government is doing things currently, but the security services always zag when everyone else is zigging, you know?
Alice, 10/12/26
Big news about Alice’s car saga: Remember when she said that today’s cars were too expensive and didn’t need all that stuff, but then rented a car and backslid and said she could get very spoiled with all the new features, but then later declared her current 25-year-old car “perfect” because it had “no technology” and got her where she wanted to go? Well, it seems she bought a new car after all, and she likes it, but she misses the simplicity of the old car, and the old price tag too. Who could’ve predicted this? You could’ve, Alice! I’ve assembled incontrovertible evidence that you predicted every aspect of the mess in which you find yourself! You have no excuse!
82 replies to “Mr. Foofram looks so defeated. He could fire Hi for this but what’s the point”
Alice is a new comics and might even appear avant-garde based on its style, but it still goes for the
staleclassic bit “old comics creators enraged about technological change and inflation”High and Lower – Obviously, Hi just won the Masters. I can’t imagine, with all the other restrictions Augusta Golf Course has had over the years, that they wouldn’t let him bring all his kids. So he went to the office instead.
“Everyone you had contact in Europe is… no longer around. Doge screwed us badly!”
Judge Parker:
The CIA’s only office in the United States is in Langley, Virgnia, and it has no domestic “regional” offices. So this whole “CIA meeting” thing is a big deepfake, and is an obvious jumping off point for more of the usual inane cloak-and-dagger antics, with no real purpose or resolution, that have been the calling card for this strip for more than ten years now.
JP. “It’s a board game. They use electrified tweezers and if they touch the sides, his nose lights up. Hilarity ensues. Seriously, it’s been around for over fifty years and you haven’t heard about it?”
Alice:
“Alice, are you ever going to stop going to Medusa’s hairdresser?”
H&L: Foofram still hasn’t processed the concept of working wives.
LUANN: Luann is surprised; when SHE was part of the move-in fantasy, it involved a miraculously furnished penthouse.
BB: Sarge is resigned to the fact that if you’ve spent several generations beating someone to a pulp, it’s only to be expected that they’ll take you down with them some day.
MW: Toby turns to look at her husband, only to find his place empty, EXCEPT FOR AN EGG ON THE PILLOW.
Hi and Lois:
“Mr. Foofram, is there some rule that says that work premises in legacy comic strips can’t go ‘business casual,’ so that the likes of you, me, Dagwood Bumstead, Mr. Dithers and Dick Tracy can’t all get rid of these confining neckties of ours?”
In the comics I follow, only A and J referred to Columbus Day although Day by Dave noted Thanksgiving in Canada.
Best line I saw about Columbus Day is to commemorate it, you can go into a store and take whatever you want without paying for it.
Hi and Lois:
In tomorrow’s Hi and Lois installment, Mr. Foofram nabs the starring role in the Milton, Connecticut Community Theater Troupe’s forthcoming production of Wally Cox: The Musical.
H&L: I don’t know how it is in other states, but in mine the schools stopped giving Columbus Day off even before I graduated, because even back then they realized Columbus was a dude you didn’t really want to be celebrating. But then Hi still lives in a world where everyone wears a suit to work and he gets a nice large office suite despite being middle management at best, so things are probably different for him.
RMMD: Beatty. Beatty, you don’t have to announce that you’re transitioning to a new scene. You can just transition. I know you know that, but you just couldn’t resist stretching out the nothing with more nothing, could you?
JP: I’ve decided that this strip takes place in an alternate universe. In this universe, there is a huge market for adult entertainment that involves the performers biting into lemons just before they film a scene. This explains all of the facial expressions in the strip and further explains the lack of real resolution to any plot. We’re seeing the censored version, before the sour-faced sex.
MW – we are putting up with a lot to get to the big reveal that Mary is helping Ian plan a romantic trip to Maui for Toby. If this goes on into November it had better be an absolutely stunning “Mary is helping Ian plan a romantic trip to Maui for Toby” reveal.
RMMD – having decided medical stuff is icky and his title character is a dud, we will now jump from dull characters having banal conversations to different dull characters having banal conversations on a biweekly schedule. This will continue until they hire the last web cartoonist under 30 to reboot the strip using K-dramas as a major influence.
@Lauralot: “You can just transition”–for a moment I thought something exciting might be happening in Rex Morgan.
DT: Ladies, you may be happy your–dad? uncle? brother?–is dead, but can you wait until the investigation is over before donning the party lampshades?
Dustin: Tomorrow: “Our top story tonight, four dead in grisly murder-suicide…”
GT: And what better way to celebrate indigenous people than by making them token minorities who exist to show the virtue and tolerance of you white male hero?
HotC: Come on, it’s A Chorus Line, it’s not that complicated, especially on the props front. Some old gym bags, a collection of mismatched hats for the “One” rehearsal, you’re set.
MT: So….Rusty’s going to become a big panda thing now?
RMMD: “Sorry, we just realized that remodeling an old theater might be too exciting for our readership. We’ll get back to people making boring small talk tomorrow, we promise!”
@TheDiva: Okay, what did I do to anger the moderation gods this time?
April may be a cold stone killer, but she’s a terrible intelligence bureaucrat. “I never said that I couldn’t provide you information, I’m saying I won’t. As you should know, it’s all about need to know and right to know. Have you been read in to the PURPLE PANTS special access program, ma’am? No? Then I think we’ve covered all this, unless you’d like to get security involved. How’s that pension looking these days? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Just wondering: does anyone remember how many years Brooke wasted on the last Pigborn story before finally abandoning it after the strip of 9th August (?) 2024?
H&L: Legacy cartoonist is the ultimate work-from-home job, so it always blows my mind when they forget that hey, even office drones can Zoom in these days. Hi doesn’t need to take his kids into office to annoy his co-workers – the kids can annoy them from the comfort of their own home by screaming into the laptop mic mid presentation!
JP: Everyone you had contact with in Europe? Even, like, the baristas at that hipster café in Norway? Probably wise to go plausible-deniability, before the Norwegian E-tjenesten secret service starts asking very awkward questions.
How is it that Alice, of all strips, pulled off a coherent multi-day storyline?
Pluggers: I am very disturbed to have to think about what Pluggers do that they need lap blankets. This chicken Plugger seems aroused and I will be thinking about that all day.
@Ukranazi Stepan: All of them! (According to Wikipedia, the last Pibgorn story started in January 2019.)
Alice – Apparenty, I’m part of the problem. I bought a small truck a few years ago, after being a econo/small sedan driver for decades. Folks ask me how I like it, I tell them, “I love it! I’ll love it even more when it’s paid for!”
It’s worth noting I paid for the truck in 2023 what my parents paid for my childhood home in 1970.
O tempora, o mores!
JP:
“As you’ve no doubt already come to discern, Ms. Bower, this isn’t really a ‘regional office’ of the CIA. This is the headquarters for the newly-created Federal Agency for the Liberation, Assimilation and Frustration of Errant Lefties. Code name: FALAFEL.”
Luann: And yet, Tara’s supposed to be more mature, responsible one here.
Crankshaft: A second week of “hanging out soap to prevent buck rub” jokes? Well at least it’s not Batton Thomas.
Alice: The font changed. This seems relevant to me somehow, like it’s a subtle clue we’re supposed to detect the meaning of.
@Bob Tice:
They’re meeting just over the border in the capital city of one of our strongest allies: Moscow.
“No longer around” preceded by three dots means they’re dead, right? I think every comic should break phrases up like this on a regular basis, just to make you wonder.
“Lois had to…show a house.”
MW: Personally I’m just waiting to hear from Sid Agent to the Animal Stars about this. Are those birds wearing masks? Are Mary and Ian his clients? Is LSD involved? Sid???
Hi & Lois:
Notice that Hi displays his diploma in the office of his white-collar corporate drone job. What do you think he got a degree in? It could be a fitting field like business management, but maybe it’s something more idealistic, like liberal arts or the sciences. Do you think every time he looks at it, he dies a little inside from thinking about the death of his dreams?
Hi & Lois: Based on the time I spent at my father’s office, at least one kid should be spinning around in a swivel-based office chair. I know that it doesn’t contribute nearly enough chaos to the scene, but it’s the law.
@TheDiva: GT: And what better way to celebrate indigenous people than by making them token minorities who exist to show the virtue and tolerance of you white male hero? … And possibly to play up the Savage Warrior stereotype by noting the “inhuman” new opposition star player as Métis, so related to indigenous people. Which is even more baffling because Métis is not A Thing in the USA (certainly not a nation-status), so his introduction – or any note about that by Marty Moon – wouldn’t even be met by ‘oh, interesting trivia’ but rather ‘what does that mean again??’
JP. The CIA motto is (for real) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The Judge Parker creative team motto is “Tell, don’t show.”
MW: I’m willing to give this The Fly/Birds sci-fi crossover a chance.
@23 Old School Allie Cat: You’re getting close to Plugger territory there.
Lois finished showing the house in 20 minutes & is spending the rest of the day passed out on the couch in some damn peace & quiet for once, and good for her!
Hi and Lois: I call shenanigans. They’d leave Trixie in the completely unstimulating empty room all day, developing Baby’s First Melanoma.
From the Pluggers Industrial Complex: We hope everyone enjoyed our guest writing installment in Alice,
JUDGE PARKER: If you ignore the narration box, the dialogue makes it sound like April and her doctor are trying to track her STD trail.
Mary Worth: Damn, I was hoping for Toby’s surrealistic infidelity nightmares to continue with the dogs having Ian’s and Mary’s faces, like in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
It looks like Beetle Bailey Vintage has looped around to the very beginning today — the first strip, Sept. 4, 1950.
Seeing as the comics won’t provide a joke…
Did you hear the one about the couple who were parents to a psychic, who eventually became world famous and drew in a vast fortune?
They made a prophet.
Beetle Bailey: You can tell autumn has arrived in Hurleyburg: in the final panel, a two pairs of Six Chix breasts are flying south for the winter.
@41 The Rambling Otter: GROAN!
It’s Thanksgiving Day up here in Canada but instead of enjoying my day off I now have to spend it wondering if the Flagston kids get some cross-border schooling and what a pain in the ass that would be to do every day. (I will ponder what they normally do with Trixie tomorrow, and how they handle childcare during the summer holidays next week.)
H&L- apparently Hi is low enough on the corporate ladder that Foofram only checks in on him at 2PM
HI & LOIS: So…Lois poses as a mild-mannered 60’s housewife until someone flashes the Lois symbol and she dashes off as house-selling vigilante Realtor-Lady (cue simplistic, but ‘swingin’ music cue)? Is that how that works? (My naive, layman mind though realtors would report to an office and have to deal with multiple clients a day as part of full-time work. I didn’t realize it was such a free-wheeling “on-call” job, apparently.)
Zits: The problem isn’t a doily screensaver, Jeremy. When Connie finds your phone, she’ll use it and discover your texting history with Sara.
BG&SS: Loweezy, “gift horses”! Your husband hasn’t worn a set of unpatched clothes since, what, your wedding day? And even that’s a guess.
9CL: I’ve been checking it out the past few weeks. Does anything ever happen? Anyway, far better was yesterday’s Peanuts.
@The Mighty Finn: Of course, as we’ve seen from previous strips, Lois would be passed out on the couch anyway, because Sunbeam is a adequate-enough au pair!
High & Low Cost: You’d think he’d would at least have the decency to confine the kids an unused office room during business hours, but no, HI’s determined that if this job won’t pay enough for him to afford a babysitter, he’s by God gonna take his frustrations out on the entire office.
BC: This one hit a little close to home for me. I once had an exercise band break mid-stretch and whack me on the foot. They say free weights can be dangerous, but definitely so can bands.
BLONDIE: It’s 2026, people. There’s no such thing as a slow news day.
FC: Sorry, Jeffy. The one person Dolly will never narc on is…herself…But rest assured, she’ll be blabbing your dirty laundry all over the house.
ZITS: This sort of thing (which happens in real life) reminds me of The Lord of the Rings, when a Ring Bearer loses the Ring, and starts panicking and going crazy.
@Bob Tice: It could be a covert office hidden within a building within a different public function.
DT: Feels like we skipped ahead a couple of days. Aren’t we owed an introduction to this white-suited taxidermist and his two Goth assistants?
GT: 1908 Olympic runner Tom Longboat doesn’t qualify? Canadians don’t count as real Americans? (Checks map to make sure)
H&L: Poor Hi! This is such a comedown for him after winning the Masters.
JP: “Are you going to answer all my questions as if you were a Magic 8-Ball?”
“Reply hazy, try again.”
“Does this storyline have a chance of going anywhere remotely interesting?”
“Outlook not so good.”
Alice: I have been stubbornly trying to find anything to enjoy about Alice, and today I think I have found it: the characters have stubby little triangle legs and absurdly tiny feet! That’s fun, right?
LUANN: Guy Next Door Tossing This: “Yeah, just ignore those sticky white stains in the upholstery. And it always smelled like Heineken and cat pee, I swear! (yeah…’cat’ pee. That’s the ticket….)”
LUANN (2): I think the bigger question is where did Tara get the furniture she has now? She’s pretty much been established as a drifter with no visible means of income. I’m guessing she steals them from various places she crashes. (Luann: “That mattress looks a lot like the ones they have at the dorms in Moony U. And why does that lamp have a label that says “property of Lucy. Don’t touch”? Tara: “Um…let me show you to the kitchen, Luann.”)
Alice – Alice really hated to part with that old price tag, but of course it has to go with the car to the new owner.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I’m going to test myself to see how far I can run”
“Good for you, boss! Can I do anything to help?”
“Yeah! Measure my distance from the door!”
@Roxanne Lucille Jones: The ground floor is a Krispy Kreme.
@2+2=7:
On Luann, and Tara stealing stuff : …yeah, it’s weird that the strip seems to have forgotten that Tara’s initial character trait was “kleptomaniac”, and that she only met Luann because she got kicked out of Moony U. for stealing the TV.
….Once again, Tara isn’t actually Luann’s friend, and is a pretty untrustworthy person, and Luann just agreed to let her move in with her boyfriend?
Hi and Lois – The creators of Hi and Lois are being generic about the “school holiday” to avoid taking sides in the culture war about Columbus Day vs. Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Last thing they need is for Lois’ brother Beetle to be on Pentagon’s radar during these dangerous times.
Judge Parker – April whips out a Ouija board, left over from the CIA’s previous research into paranormal activities, and reaches out to her dead colleagues.
Alice – Alice suffers from buyer’s remorse, as do many newspapers that chose to buy the Alice strip over the re-runs of Peanuts
Wary Morth:
Would anyone be *not* disturbed by a dream of the meddling hag and the pompous axx flying around like green vampires?
@2+2=7: There really needs to be a follow-up story arc about the dorm room getting infested with bedbugs. I know it won’t happen, but that is absolutely where this arc should lead to.
I’m somewhat unsettled to contemplate what strange objet d’art passes itself off as a car in the Alice universe. How many dimensions does it encompass? More than three?
@Rover Berkeley: Sorry, I assumed they’re sharing a dorm room. Wherever they’re shacking up, it needs a bedbug invasion.
Mr Foofram knows who stole the prototype infant killbot Tri-X E.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Judging by the cross-sectional furniture and the Picasso eyeballs, I’d say the Alice universe is constrained to two-and-a-fraction dimensions, like an ant farm enclosed between two parallel walls of glass.
Hi And Lois: Maybe I’m just ignorant because of being childless myself, but I’m pretty sure dragging your kids into your workplace outside of designated events like “Bring Your Child To Work Day” is extremely frowned upon for quite a lot of reasons and liable to get you in trouble. Which kinda undermines the cutesy tone of today’s strip just a little, since you can imagine Hi’s coworker here informing him that their manager is writing him up for an infraction and going to have security throw him and his brats out if he doesn’t make them be quiet while everyone is trying to work.
Judge Parker: CIA LADY, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??? ALL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED ON EVERY LEVEL OF THE OPERATION ARE FUCKING DEAD!!! PASSED ON, EXPIRED, NO LONGER WITH US, MASSACRED TO A MAN!!! THERE IS NO INTEL, THERE IS NO CRIME HAPPENING ANYMORE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO GAIN AND NO LEVERAGE AND NOTHING TO STOP APRIL FROM JUST MURDERING YOU AND LEAVING!! GIVE IT UP ALREADY, GODDAMMIT, MOVE ON!!!
*ahem*
Sorry. What I meant to say is, this comic is stupid.
The Familliar Mucus: Jeffy, her secret was obviously, “I’m not gonna tell you my secret.”, Louie Depama has trained this one well.
Sunday’s “Rabbits Against Magic” takes a direct shot against newspapers running repeats of comics which have at least partially stopped producing new strips (it mentions Peanuts, Doonesbury, FBOFW and even Zits)
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Best line I saw about Columbus Day is to commemorate it, you can go into a store and take whatever you want without paying for it.
That sounds like it could be a Chris Rock joke about MLK Jr Day.
“Take your kids to work day is not until April! And Saint Patrick’s days is not until March, why are you wearing a bright green jacket!?”
@69 GarrisonSkunk: Is Dolly’s secret that she has a penis? Is it Daddy’s penis?
Beat Up Bailey: Beat Up invents Flubber™.
@TheDiva: H&L: I don’t know how it is in other states, but in mine the schools stopped giving Columbus Day off even before I graduated
It’s “Indigenous People’s Day” in a lot of places today. No way the teacher’s unions would give up a paid day off.
Judge Parker: April has been taken to a CIA “regional office,” but, due to her low status at the agency, she isn’t even being grilled by the assistant regional manager — it’s the assistant to the regional manager.
Hi and Lois: Given that Hi still has a paper filing system — and uses a monitor and keyboard without a computer — I think it’s his lack of productivity, rather than the presence of his kids, that would get him fired. (Luckily, no one, including his boss, has figured out what his job actually is. Oh, and at least he’s not drunk.)
Alice: I have to admit that I get where Alice is coming from here. I’m still driving the first new car I ever purchased, which has been ridiculously reliable for a very long time. (I recently read an article about the older cars that are most likely to still be on the road — and it was illustrated by a photo of my car, down to the year and even color.) And, yes, part of what’s kept me from replacing it is sticker shock — the latest version of the same make and model would cost more than double what I paid for mine. Plus, while new safety features would be nice, I do appreciate having knobs and buttons to operate the radio.
MW: Hooboy – whatta week! I hope everyone is enjoying this tour de force by Sunny and Rosie! I was sworn to silence about the whole deal – they didn’t wanna spoil the shock value of Toby’s dream sequence. Who woulda thought she had such an imagination?
You’re right @Little Blue Bicycle: that’s our Parrot Pros wearing Mary ‘n Ian masks, carefully hand-crafted by the capable crew at Mary Worth Enterprises. They coulda gone with AI, but they wanted to keep that authenticity you expect from this studio. But I assure you, no LSD was involved! There are better alternatives available.
Yes, we are back in good graces with The Ladies. As always, we can expect a call when their ratings start tanking with pointless two-legger stories. So we got some choice scenes with Max and Greta outta the deal as well. Willa is still holding out for increased compensation and more creative control before she’ll even consider going back for a scene there.
I think The Ladies may meet her demands when we remind them we still have The Pictures… as well as the negatives… in a safe place.
Hi and Lois:
It would have been better if there had been young goats in Hi’s office when Mr. Foofram arrived.
GT & RMMD: what is this, “Lazy Cartoonists Day?”
@Cab: Not to get too political, but that article might be one of the stupidest things I have ever read in my entire life. At the same time it’s inspiring in its own way. No matter what troubles may come in my life, at least I’ll always be safe in the knowledge that I’ll never be anywhere near as much of a pathetic loser as the average politician!
@2+2=7: @Anonymous: I’m suspect the Evanssi’ keep Tara around – even though it doesn’t really make sense for anyone in the cast to want to associate with her – so that they always have someone to safely do their “snooty puritan judging” thing with. All the other characters are either their mouthpieces or too normal for them to act self-righteous towards without weirding out their readers (e.g., Bets).
Tara is the right mixture of someone they actually meant to be hated (I presume because if not than holy shit) and possessing traits that people actually would hate her for in real life like kleptomania and generally shitty personal dynamics with her “friends”. The problem, of course, being that, as noted, there ends up being no real in-universe reason for anyone to want her around and every reason for Luann to not want her living with Luann’s boyfriend. So it all just kinda collapses on itself, but what doesn’t with this comic?
@2+2=7: Lois’ realtor job is similar to Blondie’s catering company in that strip. In that the writers gave the women jobs for the sake of seeming “with the times”, but gave them jobs said writers didn’t take seriously or thought of as somehow feminine and treat them like they’re – as you say – still generic 50s-60s-style, stay-at-home housewives. When their jobs would actually be MUCH better-paying, more complex and more important to the family’s finances than their husbands’ low-ranking, dead-end office drone careers, especially these days. It’s like the writers wanted to create the image of husbands indulging their wives by letting them have a job “on the side” of mothering, only to unwittingly say the opposite of Lois and Blondie allowing their loser husbands to live in their pathetic fantasies of still being the breadwinners.
JP: I have questions: (1) Is murder illegal in Norway? (2) Does killing an arms dealer count as murder in Norway? (3) Norway has a huge arms industry. Were the murdered arms dealers permitted by Norway to deal arms, i.e., were they legitimate businessmen or “legitimate businessmen”? (4) Does Norway recognize varying degrees of homicide based on the criminal status of the victim, i.e., does Norway excuse vigilantism? (5) If so, is the criminal status of the victim determined before or after the murder? (6) Does murdering arms dealers violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977? (7) With a population of 5.6 million and murder rate of 0.72 per 100,000 people as of 2023, is there a clinically depressed detective inspector in currently investigating an anomalous spike in murders over the past few months? (8) What are the diplomatic and legal implications if the United States, knowing who the murderer is, refuses to extradite the murderer per its treaty with Norway?
Asking for a legal-themed newspaper comic strip that might want to just shift focus back to traffic scofflaws.
@ectojazzmage: JP: THEY’RE PINING FOR THE FJORDS! THEY ARE EX-PEOPLE!!!