Archive: Hi and Lois

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Hi and Lois, 11/14/14

This starts out looking like it’s going to be about a good kid resisting peer pressure, moves quickly through recognizing the false promises of advertising, then settles on some profoundly depressing existential ennui. “What’s the point of trying new things? Nothing ever really changes. We’ll just be sitting here on this couch, fundamentally, no matter what superficial things we try to add to our lives. Those fleeting, flickering images on the screen, the sense of excitement and novelty they convey — those aren’t real, or at least can’t ever be real for us. We’ll just be sitting here on this couch, forever.”

Momma, 11/14/14

It turns out that if you really want to keep Momma away from your door, you need to call in the most powerful practitioners of ancient magick that you can find.

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Hi and Lois, 10/18/14

Hi and Lois wraps up its nostalgia week on a particularly grim note. “Remember when you used to be able to yell at people and make them do what you want, instead of just putting a credit card into a machine and seething with ambient, targetless rage?”

Mary Worth, 10/18/14

“Could all of these problems just go away if I just tricked her into marrying this distinguished- and not-too-cadaverous-looking pharmacist? Yes! His glasses aren’t that thick, so he can surely still drive safely! Mary, you’ve done it again!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/18/14

Ha ha, it’s funny because Loweezy’s only context for weaning her baby is her husband’s terrible experience with the DTs! “Yep, this impoverished community is blighted both by widespread alcohol abuse and a lack of education on early childhood development!” thinks the town’s only doctor, as he laughs and laughs.

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Mark Trail, 10/14/14

I got a lot of unsolicited feedback last week when I ignored Mark’s suggestion to Cherry that, after he finished fishing with Rusty, “maybe we could have target practice with the longbow.” Much of this feedback implied that “longbow” was a euphemism for something, probably something sexual in nature, and I refused to acknowledge these suggestions, for obvious reasons. Anyway, I’ll bet today’s strip sure has all you sickos feeling pretty foolish! Nothing erotic going on in today’s strip, just a couple of dudes talking about aligning their bodies and “release.” Mark originally proposed this as an activity he and Cherry could do together, but she’s actually nowhere to be seen, thank goodness.

Hi and Lois, 10/14/14

Hi and Lois has apparently decided to embrace its status as one of the squarest comics in syndication by just doing a whole week of “weren’t things different and maybe better in decades past?” Yesterday we had “Cars sure were larger and less fuel efficient back when gas was cheaper”; today we’ve got “remember when everyone used to watch TV, before the entertainment options available today existed?” Super psyched to see if they can drag this out for another four days!

Momma, 10/14/14

Momma has long been fascinated by parliamentary systems of government, and has indeed used a close variation on this joke pretty recently. Today’s strip does include one new element, though: Momma and MaryLou’s odd shared thought balloon. “Fair and square,” they both think in panel one, back when everyone is optimistic about how this debate is going to go, back before it was revealed that Momma thinks it’s “fair” to usurp executive power without receiving a vote of confidence from the democratically elected representatives of the people.

Blondie, 10/14/14

Aww, isn’t that cute, Mr. Dithers #gets #hashtags now! Unfortunately, the Blondie creative team doesn’t really #get that Twitter is not a texting or instant messaging service. Also, they didn’t manage to secure their #brand on this #social platform, seeing as @dagwood is actually a professor at Northwestern and @dithers is some guy who hasn’t tweeted since 2013!