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Hi and Lois, 9/10/26

Now, look, I more or less enjoyed Forrest Gump as a college-aged moviegoer in 1994, but I wouldn’t say that it had much of a lasting cultural footprint, you know? Certainly not to the extent little kids would be going around quoting it. Just for comparison, an eight-year-old in 2026 quoting Forrest Gump would be like me as an eight-year-old in 1982 quoting … actually, I looked this up, and the Forrest Gump equivalent from 1960 (hit winner of multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director) is Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, one of the greatest movies ever made. I also saw The Apartment for the first time in 1994, but if I had seen it as a child, I’m pretty sure I would’ve loved it then too. A lot of it would’ve gone over my head but the dialogue is pretty accessible, I think. “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise!” I would’ve said, if I had found myself in a situation like Ditto has in today’s strip. It would’ve still been appropriate, and my mother would’ve been charmed by my precocious taste in film instead of vaguely annoyed like Lois is here.

The Lockhorns, 9/10/26

Very longtime and very faithful readers of this blog know that today is my wedding anniversary, and, on the I think justified assumption that Leroy is a last-minute gift shopper, it appears to be the Lockhorns’ anniversary as well. This is even more disturbing than the fact that they’re millennials. This one’s personal.

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Pickles, 8/18/26

Not to sound old, but I do find someone replying “k” to me to be irritating sometimes (and to prove I’m not doing generational discourse, I’ll say these people are as likely to be older than me as they are to be younger). But expecting someone to type out “okay” instead of “ok”? That’s madness. That’s insanity.

B.C., 8/18/26

Speaking of generational discourse, I’m not sure what syndicated newspaper comic strip I would’ve guessed would be the first to go in for “Weren’t things different and better back in the wonderful long-ago year two thousand and twelve?” nostalgia slop for millennials, but I definitely would not have picked B.C.

Hi and Lois, 8/18/26

There are something like 1.5 million real estate agents in the US, according to some cursory Googling, and I don’t think there’s ever been a comic strip dedicated to their specific interests and concerns, so maybe Hi and Lois should lean into that and become primarily realtor-focused. The Roaring ’20s ended and Blondie shifted from being about a cool flapper and her dissolute failson husband to being about a suburban dipshit who’s bad at his white collar job but manages to hold onto it anyway; so too, as America’s economy becomes increasingly asset-based, we must turn away from Hi’s generic office antics and instead focus on his wife’s attempts to facilitate people cashing out their home equity and hoping the money lasts until they die. The creative team will need to do a bit more research on the various dilemmas realtors encounter in their day-to-day life to give the thing a little more variety, though. They can’t all be about hoarders!

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Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/8/26

So, ah, what do you think that foodstuff is that Superman is slicing in half with his (I assume) heat vision? Is it a deep dish pizza, half cheese and half pepperoni? Some kind of custard tart with fruit on only half of it? Assuming that the “topping on only half” part is deliberate, why would Supes be slicing the appetizer in half in a way that each half has some topping and some not? And could either a pizza or a tart really be considered an “appetizer,” anyway? BUT: what if I told you that this is all a distraction from the real issue, which is that Mother Goose, who has a boyfriend, is on what appears to be a date with the Man of Steel, who, I haven’t really been keeping up but he generally has a couple ladies whose affections he’s juggling as well, right? What is going on here? Scandalous!

Hi and Lois, 8/8/26

Sure, this looks like a couple of suburban bros enjoying a little light erotic hosefun, but think about it for a moment: Hi declares that it’s hot enough to spray Thirsty with his hose, which implies that there are situations where Thirsty would be uncomfortable enough to ask but Hi would deem the weather too mild and would then withhold the desired soaking. In other words, it’s a little BDSM-flavored light erotic hosefun.

Marvin, 8/8/26

I like how Marvin’s grandpa tried to do a cute little joke to make light of the pain constantly besetting his aging body, but it doesn’t work to lighten his or Bernie’s spirits and neither of them can muster a smile. Usually when I write a sentence like this starting with “I like how…” I’m being sarcastic, but not in this case. I bear animus towards all the characters in Marvin, even the ancillary ones, and I revel in their unbroken experience of misery.