Archive: Hi and Lois

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Hi and Lois, 1/25/14

The Thurstons are meant to serve as the barren, dysfunctional foils to the loving and fecund Flagstons, what with their constant arguments and cycle of alcoholism and codependency. I’m not sure which small detail in today’s strip sells this better: the plant on the credenza, which long ago withered and died from neglect but still sits out in the living room because nobody is willing to deal with it, or the framed picture of a football, hanging in a prominent spot one would normally assign to photos of one’s wedding or beloved family or something, presumably there as a defiant statement that Thirsty likes watching sports and getting bombed more than anything else in the world.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/25/14

How things have changed for the Tuttles, the couple who have come to Hootin’ Holler to grift the gullible inhabitants under the cloak of religion! Five years ago, in more optimistic times, they looked at a fancy hat as a potential moneymaking tool; now they can only see it as a cost sink.

Momma, 1/25/14

It’s pretty sad for both Francis and Momma’s crude art style is that literally the only way I could recognize this sickly figure as Momma’s younger son was the withering contempt in which the strip holds him.

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Hi and Lois, 12/7/13

I’m sort of fascinated by the roller-coaster of facial expressions Hi is treating us to here. In panel one, he’s staring at Thirsty’s gut in shock and disbelief, as if he’s thinking “My God, he’s right! Everything they’ve told us about beer guts is a lie! What’s the point of avoiding beer if you’re still going to get fat? What’s the point of anything?” But in panel two, he switches to cruel superiority. “Ha ha, Thirsty, man does not grow fat on beer alone! Meat and bread are also full of calories! The world makes sense once again, though now that I know you’ve given up beer without any kind of introspective look at why you were so dependent on alcohol in the first place, it’s going to be even more pleasingly cutting to call you ‘Thirsty.'”

Crankshaft, 12/7/13

Turns out yesterday’s mind-bending encounter was just Crankshaft getting a mystical and terrifying glimpse into his own future, which has shaken his very soul. Naturally not only does nobody believe him, but they’re all very ostentatiously laughing at him, because this is a strip where none of the characters are capable of pity or empathy of any kind.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/7/13

Have you ever dreaded going to your mind-numbing, unfulfilling job and thought that, even though you’d be less well off in terms of material possessions, you’d be happier and more satisfied with a spiritual calling that allowed you to help your neighbors and give glory to God? Well, Herb and Jamaal’s Rev. Croom and I have got some bad news for you.

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Mary Worth, 11/6/13

“This award isn’t so much for me, or the other humans who work and volunteer there, as it is for the shelter itself — the actual physical building. I mean, if you think about it, all the volunteers and staffers in the world couldn’t help the homeless if we didn’t have a building to put them in, am I right? We’d just be standing around outside holding umbrellas over their heads or something, and that wouldn’t be very helpful at all! Anyway, that’s why we sometimes let the building wrench the very souls of some of our clients out of their bodies and suck them into a terrifying hell-dimension through the nightmarish maw-portal that lurks in the basement. Yes, the process is fatal and horrifying, but if this wonderful, helpful building needs to feed on the life-essence of 20 percent or so of the people we house in order to sustain its demonic existence, who are we to complain?”

Crock, 11/6/13

Wow, I sure don’t remember a hat-and-diaper-clad chinless blob-horror being among the cast of beloved legacy strip Crock. Newspapers are correct to eschew any affiliation with whatever awful demonic babble is emerging from this abomination’s perversely grinning mouth-hole.

Hi and Lois, 11/6/13

“Ha ha but what if there was a baby who was also a cougar” –an idea that should’ve immediately been discarded, but was instead turned into the punchline of a nationally syndicated comic strip