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Archive: Hi and Lois

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Ha ha, it’s funny because they don’t love each other

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Beetle Bailey, 3/8/14

Saturdays in Beetle Bailey are for the grandiosely dysfunctional Halftrack marriage; today’s installment at least has something resembling mean-spirited cheer compared to some of the more frankly traumatizing examples we’ve seen. Anyway, I’m not sure what interpretation here is more unsettling: that Mrs. Halftrack is desperate for sexual validation and doesn’t know what “person of interest” means and, as revenge for everything, the general refuses to tell her, or that Mrs. Halftrack and the local constabulary have some weird erotic roleplay going on and she’s rubbing it in her husband’s face.

Hi and Lois, 3/8/14

Still, today’s Hi and Lois wins the coveted award for Most Chilling Marital Misanthropy In A Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC Strip. I’m genuinely impressed by the attention to detail shown in panel one, in which Irma has the key to her husband’s basement prison casually dangling from her wrist. “She’ll let us out in a few hours!” Thirsty proclaims cheerfully, not realizing the he will never see the sun again.

Judge Parker, 3/8/14

Yes, the invention of armed, remote-controlled unmanned drones raises troubling questions about the future of armed conflict and the ability of hegemonic states to prosecute low-intensity warfare against non-state actors largely in secret, without expending much by way of blood or treasure. But if this technological advance leads to the insufferable Parkers being blown to bits by a remotely launched Predator missile, couldn’t we say that it was all, in the end, worthwhile?

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How dare you question my spelling, I was educated by an English nanny

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/9/14

Oh hey, remember how Sarah Morgan, who is a child, got a lucrative book deal from a museum for her horsey drawings, but it came so easily to her that she was wracked with self-doubt? Well, just because she may be undergoing some internal self-reassessment doesn’t mean that it’s okay for the people paying her money for a book to assign her an God-damned professional editor to supervise the process just like they would for literally any other writer they publish, including adults who have already written multiple books. Just look at her face in that last panel! You’re dealing with Sarah Morgan, motherfuckers, and her lawyer is going to make sure you regret everything about this decision.

Beetle Bailey, 2/9/14

Speaking of regrets, I sure regret reading this comic, because now I can’t stop thinking about Otto the dog suddenly growing to full human size and asserting his right to bring lady dogs to the barracks, for sex.

Hi and Lois, 2/9/14

Ha ha, an adorable child in a comic is talking about “promoting my brand,” time to break all the computers and move to an island far away!

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Ten bucks says this plugger complains his grandkids never write him letters

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Pluggers, 2/7/14

Writing a blog post about the daily comics pretty much every day for more than nine years has honestly given me quite a bit of sympathy for cartoonists who have to come up with a fresh variation on their basic gags daily, so I’m willing to forgive the bizarrely convoluted caption to this cartoon (would you be a non-plugger if you said “no” but then your granddaughter didn’t follow-up with this question? why does your granddaughter get to determine your plugger status?). I’m not willing to let the extremely and unjustifiably smug expression on the plugger-grandpa’s face slide, though. What exactly is going through that man-dog’s noggin? “Heh heh, look at this little girl, her life on earth so brief to this point that she doesn’t really understand the concepts of social and technological change over time. Why, all of existence is just one continuous present moment to her! It takes years of experience as a plugger to understand that life is a slow transformation of the world and your place in it, until one day you wake up and the things young people take for granted are baffling and scary, and everything makes you angry and confused. She’ll learn some day! Oh, she’ll learn!”

Six Chix, 2/7/14

It’s hard to tell because it’s so crudely drawn, but I’m thinking that bear is looking a little miffed. “You know, I have lots of opinions on ways we and our clients can work together to add value to both companies’ offerings. But, yeah, sure, just call me in when you need someone mauled. HEY, I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE, I CAN HEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT ME.”

Hi and Lois, 2/7/14

Hey, Ditto, at least your sister has a normal name she can use! At least she isn’t named after a primitive means of reproducing printed material that went out of vogue in the 1980s! You’re playing with fire here, Ditto.