Post Content

Hi and Lois, 3/27/26

A thing about Hi and Lois and comic strip time that you really have to keep in mind is that Hi and Lois has been in newspapers with Trixie as one of its characters since 1954, but Hi and Lois just had their youngest child within the last year. She’s a baby! She’s pretty much brand new! That’s why it’s deeply psychotic to see them grinning broadly about how happy their bird friend is about being an empty nester. You just reset that clock! You’re nearly two decades out from singing this cheerful tune! Are you not listening to yourselves?

Pluggers, 3/27/26

Pluggers sing in the shower so their spouse will know they’re OK, and choose lyrics to reaffirm the fact that they’re bisexual and polyamorous. Yeah, that’s right! It’s 2026 now! Pluggers are bi and poly! Get on their level.

Gil Thorp, 3/27/26

I’m willing to follow Gil Thorp to a lot of places, so I would’ve accepted it if the strip had told me that this year’s golf program was going to get mildly interesting. But very interesting? Nope. Not buying it. This is golf we’re talking about, c’mon.

Crankshaft, 3/27/26

I’m sorry if my last Crankshaft post gave you the impression that the title character would be slowly and tragically fading away into senility over the coming months. In fact, he’s going to be very rapidly but still tragically smeared all over the highway in the next few minutes. I regret the error.

Post Content

Crankshaft, 3/25/26

I like the combination of Crankshaft’s dopey smile and Keesterman’s look of genuine concern in the final panel. Consistently misspeaking like this isn’t normal and it isn’t funny, and I guess someone should tell the latter to Andrews McMeel Syndication, which sells this strip to newspapers all over the country.

Hi and Lois, 3/25/26

Wow, Hi’s face in that last panel is a lot less “Ha ha, the mayor wasn’t even able to get that ball over the plate!” and a lot more “Oh my god … the mayor somehow killed six and injured dozens more with an errant throw. This is awful. This is the darkest opening day in the history of Major League Baseball.”

Mary Worth, 3/25/26

I feel like logically we must assume that there’s an unseen third panel, where someone is fretting that Mary hasn’t reached out for a bit. Is it Wilbur? Probably Wilbur. He’s hit some new emotional low in a comical fashion and Mary is the last person he knows who won’t laugh directly in his face about it. Obviously there’s no unseen fourth panel, because nobody is worried that Wilbur hasn’t gotten in touch lately.

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 3/18/26

Look, we’re all adults here. Well, maybe some of you are weird kids with grown-up taste in ironic internet websites, I don’t know, but my point is, let’s ignore Trixie’s insipid heliocentric rambling and turn our eyes to the fun little domestic drama in panel one. Check out how beaten down and defeated Hi looks; that’s a man who has passive-aggressively talked about high energy bills for weeks even as time slips further and further into air conditioning season; and rather than be gracious after he’s given in, Lois is doing a little pantomime of concern: “Oh, but can we afford it, Hi? Will we need to dip into the children’s college fund, in order to keep the temperature in here below 80 degrees?” My own natural thrift puts me tentatively on Hi’s side here, but they could be taking other steps, like following Trixie’s lead and pricing solar panels, or at least taking off their sweaters.

Judge Parker, 3/18/26

One of my least favorite little narrative devices is when some character makes a daring and self-destructive move in order to achieve some goal, and then comes out on top against all odds, but when he does, announces that he understands he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. This happens more often than you’d think, and it’s especially annoying in cases like this, when Randy is like “I’m a bad person! I’ve suffered nothing for my choices and actually had a pretty cool time getting broken out of prison by my hot, murderous wife, but I just want to apologize for my wrongs! Probably my daughter doesn’t love me anymore, right? Whatever, she’s someone else’s problem now, which, uh, I again acknowledge I should feel bad about.”

Luann, 3/18/26

A thing about the comic strip Luann is that sometimes you’ll get a whole week’s worth of strips where one character just passive-aggressively talks shit about another character within earshot of them. And the shit-talker is the one you’re supposed to be sympathetic towards. It’s wild stuff!