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Hi and Lois, 10/4/11

Fun fact about Hi and Lois (yes, fun facts about Hi and Lois exist): “Thirsty” Thurston was originally given that nickname because he was a chronic drunk. At some point, the strip toned down that aspect of his personality — you know, for the children — mostly by getting rid of his bright red nose and visible intoxication bubbles, and for the past several decades we’ve just been left to fill in the blanks for the origins of his shiftlessness, slovenliness, and unhappy marriage. But it appears that someone at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC suddenly realized (probably right about here) that children stopped reading the comics long ago, and so Thirsty’s boozehounding can now come back in full force! Earlier this week there was already a strip about how he passed out drunk on Hi’s couch and spent the night in a stupor, so I look forward to the hijinks that will ensue once he polishes off this minivan-sized box of Beer™ brand beer.

Apartment 3-G, 10/4/11

I’m pretty sure that we’re always supposed to find Margo’s high-handed demands unreasonable, which is why I find it odd that her current set of high-handed demands involve asking Lu Ann to do her job rather than comparing different shades of pastel for bridesmaids dresses and matching napkins all day. Rather than responding with “Weddings! Bah, humbug! My heart was broken by my fiancé’s death, so I must crap on your happiness!” it would kind of make more sense if Margo said, “Yeah, so, you know I’m paying you to, like, work at the art gallery, right?”

B.C., 10/4/11

Ha ha, those jokesters at B.C., they’re sure stickin’ it to those hippies, and their grass! Hippies eat grass, right? That’s how you “do” grass? If you’re a hippie? Anyway, long story short, this hippie is about to be savagely killed by a dinosaur, for his drug crimes.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/17/11

“That’s just her style, Paul. Not liking you! Not liking people is Margo’s style.”

Beetle Bailey, 8/17/11

Fans of “Sexy Miss Buxley Wednesday” are no doubt disappointed to find this week that it’s overlapped with “The depressing moment when the veil is torn away and we can see the full-on awful extent of General Halftrack’s alcoholism and self-loathing, a moment that can happen any day of the week without warning.”

B.C., 8/17/11

Ha ha, it’s funny because the turtle’s shell is covered with a toxic chemical that will eventually seep into his bloodstream and kill him!

Mark Trail, 8/17/11

OK, so we want to focus on Kelly’s eyes, so we can get a sense of the sexy plotting going on in her mind … closer … closer … AUGGGGH TOO CLOSE ABORT ABORT ABORT

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B.C., 6/13/11

You know, as much as I rail against the practice of keeping the same 30 or so comic strips in every newspaper in America, despite the deaths of their creators, I do understand why people like having them around. There’s something tremendously comforting in seeing the same characters, day after day, year after year, doing the same things. You get so accustomed to their rhythms that you pretty much stop questioning the strip’s visual conventions, even those conventions were laid down years before you started reading and you’re never quite sure where they came from in the first place.

Take the clothes that the cavemen of B.C. wear, for instance. I guess they’re supposed to be kind of a loincloth thing? At one point they involved a shoulder strap of some sort, but now they’re just a black strip around the waist area. Johnny Hart no doubt came up with the character design fairly early in the strip run and then promptly stopped thinking about it. However, now his grandson is in charge and is playing around with things, which involves forcing us to contemplate the fact that the cavemen’s dangly bit are on full display under these “suits,” which, thanks a lot, I think I’d like to go back to the unchanging nostalgia now.

Gil Thorp, 6/13/11

Ha ha, look at how angry Gil is in panel two! He may not have given a crap when sinister Hobart threatened to slash school budgets and lay off most of his co-workers, but when people start talking about his drinking problem and his inappropriate fraternization with students, well, that’s when things get ugly.

Slylock Fox, 6/13/11

This is pretty much one of the most hilariously depressing Slylock Foxes ever. “Sorry Max, your idea is flawed due to your fundamental inability to grasp basic thermodynamics. What? No, I don’t have a better idea. All these candles are going to melt and and this poor lady is going to go bankrupt! Well, we really should be going.”

Marvin, 6/13/11

While I can’t blame Marvin’s family for turning to illegal drugs to deal with the fact that they’re related to Marvin, I’d have guessed that they’d go for alcohol or other depressants, which would dull the pain if only temporarily. But Jeff clearly finds that coke or speed or something along those lines helps him cope, and who am I to judge?