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Archive: Hi and Lois

175

What if all the kids at her school are psychic and Olive is just a loser

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Mary Worth, 8/2/25

Not sure what’s funnier here: That Olive says it’s hard to “ignore the critics,” as if there’s a Yelp category specifically for tweens and Olive has received a series of 1- and 2-star reviews referring to her as “weird” and “subpar” and “is she psychic or what, I don’t get it, she hints at it a lot but mostly doesn’t do any cool stuff,” or that Mary urges her to “keep on shining,” as if she were vaguely aware that there’s a book and a movie about a little psychic kid called The Shining that she’s never seen but it sounds like such a pleasant and optimistic title that she assumes everything works out pretty well for him.

Hi and Lois, 8/2/25

“What this beach needs is fewer little kids coming up and talking to you,” the lifeguard thinks. “I should make a sign telling them not to do it.”

Gil Thorp, 8/2/25

Ha ha, Gil is totally sanguine about the possibility of his ex-wife taking a job as AD at his hated rival school! It’s all good! Holding a big cup of lemonade at the top in a vice grip where it looks like you’re going to crush it with your bare hand is normal and a sign that you’re just relaxing and having fun, actually!

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Wednesday quickies

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Hi and Lois, 7/16/25

Hmm, if you have to apply, it isn’t really Trixie’s pre-school yet, is it, Hi? Really makes you think (about how modern child-rearing is an agonizing treadmill of chasing status that starts at birth and has no end in sight).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/16/25

“Whoever he is, tell him to meet me at the crossroads and I’ll beat him in a guitar-pickin’ contest! Then I’ll be your dad!”

Pluggers, 7/16/25

Ha ha, you can’t fool me, Pluggers! “Go home” implies that pluggers are going someplace else in the first place and you know I don’t buy that.

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Somewhere in time

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Andy Capp, 7/14/25

The question of “When does Andy Capp take place” is increasingly fascinating to me — characters are on modern dating apps but also they dress … like that? … which seems pretty old-timey to me. Today’s strip in particular feels like it belongs to an age before the UK Parliament passed the Licensing Act 1988, back when alcohol could only be served at pubs from 11:30 am to 3 pm and 6:30 pm to 11 pm. This explains the reference to Andy’s “afternoon nap”; presumably he routinely stumbles home at 3 o’clock pretty soused and passes out on the couch for hours. Normally he’d be up and around to go back for the evening session, but I guess he overslept today and has missed out on hours of the precious “aimless drunkenness in the presence of non-wife people who he likes or at least whose names he knows” time that makes his life worthwhile bearable.

Hagar the Horrible, 7/14/25

Ha ha, that got a little dark! Anyway, speaking of placing comics in context, you know I’ve long been fascinated by when exactly Hagar the Horrible takes place over the evolution of Viking culture and society, but the where matters as well. I’m reasonably sure it’s been made explicit in-strip that Hagar lives in Norway, which means that his world faces out to the North Atlantic. His Swedish cousins have established extensive trading routes through the Russian river systems with the Byzantines and Abbasids, so they have access to the delicious spices of the east, but Hagar’s Norse compatriots haven’t gone far enough south of Greenland to discover genus Capsicum, which means that in his mind “hot wings” are just wings that are currently or recently on fire. Sad!

Hi and Lois, 7/14/25

When Hi referred to “your honey-do list,” I briefly thought that we were turning a traditional sexist cliché on its head here, but nope! It’s just a joke about Hi feeling wounded and unappreciated — or in other words, “classic late-era Hi and Lois,” which around here we do respect.