The Comics Curmudgeon

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Archive: Hi and Lois

21

Good faces

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Marvin, 11/5/26

The facial expressions in the second panel here are bone-chillingly perfect for the vibe of this strip. Marvin’s dad has a face that says “I want to watch football but I’m going to do the absolute bare minimum to care for my toddler son, and also probably a lot of uptight people are going to think that I’m not even doing the bare minimum,” and Marvin has a face that says “Oh no! I’m going to be stewing in my own poop, for extended periods of time!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 11/5/26

Speaking of good facial expressions, I appreciate Rudy’s here. Like, I guess I’m not excited to look at the face of an ostrich in genuine distress because his head and neck are covered in ants, but if I have to, I want to see it done well, and they really nailed it here.

Hi and Lois, 11/5/26

I don’t think Hi and Lois should do strips where little kids talk about dead dogs! I think that’s a little grim, even for the current no-punchline iteration of the strip!

Pluggers, 11/5/26

You’re a plugger if you’re suffering all the time and you want everyone to know it.

133

Your boring-ass house is not where in the world

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Hi and Lois, 10/25/26

Given how much time I spent parsing Hi’s fantasy self-image as a young Major Leaguer a few weeks ago, I’m kind of tickled by his vision of his real childhood, where he looks exactly like he does now, same haircut and everything, except smaller, and his dad looks exactly like he does now except with a mustache. Speaking of Hi’s dad, it’s kind of weird that Hi and Lois are probably in their early 40s at the oldest and they never seem to visit or be visited by their parents, right? I guess spending fall weekends cheerfully breathing in a toxic mix of fine particulate matter and carcinogenic chemicals might have something to do with it.

Heathcliff, 10/25/26

Not to be a downer about it, but a big bone-in ham like that is basically a corpse, right? Or at least a sizable chunk of one? So I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s inhabited by a vengeful ghost of some kind, though the fact that it’s haunted by three of them implies that we know a lot less about matters of the spirit than we may think.

Mary Worth, 10/25/26

Lot going on here, but the panel I’m really hung up on is “People gossip about things they don’t comprehend.” I mean, I buy that most people don’t comprehend why Toby and Ian are together. That’s because they don’t know them well enough to get a sense of the various personality problems that have significantly limited both of their romantic prospects.

Panel from Dick Tracy, 10/25/26

Oh, come on, Crimestoppers Textbook! Carmen Sandiego and her coconspirators at V.I.L.E. have their sights set on stealing historic treasures and natural monuments. They have no time for petty door-to-door-salesperson scams!

172

SURPRISE!!!!!!! (if you are as dumb as Toby)

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Mary Worth, 10/18/26

Oh, wow, as predicted by literally everybody, Mary and Ian weren’t engaged in a sexual relationship after all; they were simply spending lots of time together because Ian is simply too dumb to know how to make a reservation at a restaurant or an all-inclusive resort, both of which I assume have both phone numbers and websites, and he was deliriously grateful that Mary was able to help out. Why, they even had a big laugh together about how ill-equipped Ian is to successfully complete even the most basic of everyday life tasks. The best thing about this big reveal is that Wilbur, Dawn, Saul, Eve, and … I think that’s Tommy? … are all party invitees, which means that the exact same people who eagerly spread the gossip about Ian and Mary also presumably knew that Ian and Mary were planning a surprise party for Toby together. It also means that Toby has no actual friends, because I don’t think she’s ever hung out with any of these people on a non-Charterstone-pool-party basis.

Dustin, 10/18/26

Now, I know most of us think about Dustin as “that unlikeable dipshit who’s marginally less unlikeable than his father.” But he has some layers to him that you might not expect! For instance, did you know he’s also haunted by thoughts of death, and how he’ll be remembered after it in this world and what he’ll experience in the next?

Hi and Lois, 10/18/26

Speaking of the afterlife, can you imagine risking eternal damnation just to watch a Jaguars-Texans game? Seems not worth it, to me. On the other hand, given that the pews here are full of random comic and cartoon characters, Hi is probably having some kind of hallucinatory experience, which makes the fact that he’s making sure to keep up on Jags-Texans action even more pathetic.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 10/18/26

We’re all familiar with Pinocchio, of course, the beloved wooden puppet who came to life. Can you imagine if Pinocchio were real, and worried about venereal disease? Probably in that context he’d think about termites, right? Termites that would eat his wooden penis? Anyway, that’s not a puppet lady who he’s ogling, so I personally think he should learn more about the human body and the various organisms that make up its extended biome before he goes around trying to have sex with us.