Post Content

Hi and Lois, 5/5/24

I guess the point of this strip (to the extent that any given Hi and Lois comic can be said to have a “point”) is to shore up the Walker-Browne brand and remind American that the Camp Swampy gang and the Flagstons’ suburban hellscape coexist in a single universe of shared IP. Personally, I’m more intrigued by the comic book time effects: when the strip launched in 1954, Lois presumably had a birth date that would’ve put her roughly in the same demographic as her grandmother in the middle second row panel here. But what really makes this for me is Ditto looking cruelly at the cookie jar and whispering that delightfully batshit sentence at it, simultaneously erotic and threatening, the sort of thing that, if your parents overheard you saying it, they’d repeat it to every romantic partner you ever brought home for the rest of your life, to your mounting distress.

Beetle Bailey, 5/5/24

Elsehwere in the FlagstBaileyVerse, Killer is making a dating app profile! As much fun as the main body of the strip makes spinning a web of lies in an attempt to attract some hapless young woman seem, I must point your attention to Killer’s look of beaten-down resignation in the first throwaway panel. Being the most oversexed soldier in your unit is a job, and Killer is determined to be good at it, but like every job it wears on you after a while.

Mary Worth, 5/5/24

Maybe Killer doesn’t need to put so much work into this, though. After all, if the person you meet on the apps turns out to not be for you, you can always just smooch the nearest attractive service worker to fulfill your natural romantic needs! (Just kidding, if Killer tried this today he would immediately be arrested, because of woke.)

Post Content

Daddy Daze, 5/4/24

Look, I’m just going to say it: I find the Daddy Daze baby, with his fixed, manic smile, his uncanny ability to move about and manipulate objects despite his infancy, and his inscrutable language of “ba”s, to be off-putting and frankly a little scary. So no, I’m not on board with the Daddy Daze daddy telling him to go out and start collecting memories from the very brains of his hapless victims.

Family Circus, 5/4/24

I know the upcoming Garfield movie is a big media event and the studio is making lots of deals to cross-promote it everywhere. I’m just a little surprised and frankly disappointed that the Catholic Church decided to get in on the action.

Beetle Bailey, 5/4/24

Wait, if you’re supposed to wear civvies to the General’s party, why’s he wearing a uniform? I was going to say that Beetle Bailey was drawing on its deep knowledge of contemporary military culture and uniform rules for the nuances of this joke, but then I realized how absurd that was, had a good laugh, and then went to lie down. Anyway, I think it’s just a mistake.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 4/21/24

You’d think that boxing talk combined with Wilbur going into a traumatized fugue state would be a perfect opportunity for a return of the boxing Wilburbabies, but, no, instead he’s fantasizing about being a superhero or whatever, probably because even he knows he couldn’t defeat Zak in a straight-up boxing match. I think it’s funny that his super-alter-ego is wearing a domino mask, I guess for disguise purposes? The character is called “Wilburman,” everyone knows it’s Wilbur, c’mon.

Beetle Bailey, 4/21/24

THING I ENJOYED ABOUT THIS STRIP: That the tattoo artist looks genuinely miffed about having to undo his previous work

THING I DID NOT ENJOY ABOUT THIS STRIP: Learning that Cookie’s distinctive shoulder hair is strawberry blond

Marvin, 4/21/24

CREATOR OF THE COMIC STRIP MARVIN, DESPERATELY TRYING TO AVOID DOING ANOTHER JOKE ABOUT THE TITLE CHARACTER PISSING OR SHITTING HIMSELF: Uh …. uh. Wife bad? Wife bad.