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Hi and Lois, 9/2/23

If you want a glimpse of how in mid-century America, syndicated newspaper cartooning used to be your ticket to a comfortable life, consider the central position the great suburban participatory leisure sports of golf and tennis hold in our legacy strips! It’s a different time now, but these strips can still teach us a lot about the folkways of suburban Connecticut and similar communities, and if I’m reading today’s Hi and Lois right, those places are on the verge of civil war. Hi thinks he can just ride this one out on the golf course, but there will come a time, and soon, where he’ll have to take a side.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/2/23

Oh ho, it looks like Rene, aka “Professor Mirakle,” is back to tie up some loose ends, possibly by murdering his erstwhile disciple Mud! Ha ha, everyone will be real sorry they didn’t accept his apologies, once they find his bullet-ridden corpse in this hotel room three days from now! Honestly, though, it seems much more likely that Rene is just trying to get a cut of the money from Mud’s apparently quite lucrative Li’l Fergus character and the songs he co-wrote and/or inspired through fake guru powers. It would be funny to see an attempted murderer make use of the legal system to enforce his intellectual property claims, but honestly, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

Between Friends, 9/2/23

Sorry to this lady who is being abandoned by all her friends and family, but I will never get over the phrase “We live in a global world.” Do we? Is it a global world we live in? Is it really? Is that why you can use a globe to depict the world with such uncanny accuracy?

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Judge Parker, 8/25/23

Look, Sophie, your parents might have accidentally kinda sorta agreed, under a certain amount of duress, to assassinate somebody, OK? So we’re going to need a lot more of the classic “I can dispassionately analyze data and am deeply interested in wars and the surreptitious ways states and state-like organizations enact violence to further their interests” Sophie and a lot less of this modern-day “Oh, boo hoo, I’m capable of forming emotional attachments and I worry about the people in my life” Sophie from here on in.

Beetle Bailey, 8/25/23

Big news! They’re finally sending Beetle into combat! It’s not going to go great, I think everyone pretty much knows in advance.

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Marvin, 5/7/23

Like Hagar the Horrible, Marvin hasn’t exactly introduced a ton of new characters over in recent years. I’m pretty sure “Marty” is new, though. Marty! The guy Marvin’s dad refuses to humiliate himself in front of! As opposed to, you know, all the other characters, where he has absolutely no shame about it. Anyway, not sure how much mileage we can actually get out of that dynamic, so wisely they didn’t bother putting the effort into drawing Marty. You’ll just have to use your imagination, I guess!

Family Circus, 5/7/23

Big Daddy Keane! You think your old age is going to be unpleasant without the kids, but have you considered that it might just feel that way because your future self has chosen to sit in an extremely uncomfortable-looking chair? Get a nice recliner, and have it shipped to your new house, the one that you don’t tell the kids the address to, it’ll be great, trust me.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/7/23

“Because I’m gonna need something to poop in when I need an excuse to not sing ‘Muddy Boots’! That’s right, Mud Mountain is back, baby!”