The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Archive: Hi and Lois

Comments are closed

Lotta good farming there, “green” is right in the name

Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 2/3/24

Man, I remember when poetry was orally transmitted, when anyone could get in front of the assembly and fire off some verses that they had memorized about the contention of the gods or the glorious battles fought by our fathers or our fathers’ fathers in the south. But then, our fathers fathers’ brought back writing from the south, along with big ideas about how the King shouldn’t just be the chief of chiefs but at the top of the heap and in command of all, and now you need his permission just to be a poet, and you have to write all your poetry down on paper. This place is getting to be a drag, man. You wanna go to Greenland? I hear Greenland is still cool. Got a lot of breathing room out there.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/3/24

I applaud today’s Snuffy Smith for acknowledging that generation gap discourse is eternal and ongoing rather than doing the “kids today would rather look at the phone on their comfortable couch instead of playing kick the can in the street and getting run over by a car” bit, but I do want to recognize that Snuffy’s father was canonically in a Rip Van Winkle-style state of suspended animation for decades. He literally doesn’t understand the current generation! He’s a man out of time, unmoored from the world he thought he knew!

Hi and Lois, 2/3/24

Ha ha, it’s funny because Thirsty is going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning in that tent! Don’t worry, it will be very peaceful for him, because he’s quite drunk.

Comments are closed

Troubling Thursday

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 1/25/24

Wow, that is a sinister expression on Dot’s face there in the final panel. “If I had the God-like power to erase anything from existence, what would it be? Why, my twin, my echo, my failed copy, the one person I’ve been with ever since the day I was born — even before, in the womb. Would I wipe him out with a gesture? Of course I would. There would finally be room for me, then.”

Marvin, 1/25/24

A thing about Marvin is that Marvin is awful, sure, but also sometimes you get strips about how the adults in his life also know he’s awful, and are scheming to spend as little time with him as possible. Almost like it’s written by someone who hates writing about this awful baby but it’s their job now and they can’t escape! Ha ha, I wouldn’t know anything about that.

Six Chix, 1/25/24

“Are … are you OK? Like, do you have someone to talk to, about this, or about anything, really?” –my initial reaction to a solid 40% of Six Chix strips

Comments are closed

Birds? On a boat? Sounds dubious

Post Content

Shoe, 1/19/24

I was going to go on a long rant here about how comics gag writers so frequently come up with a joke and then work backwards from it even if it doesn’t make sense in the strip’s established universe of characters, and why would the Perfesser be interested in a cruise like this when he doesn’t even have kids, but then, ha ha, I realized I had forgotten about his nephew-ward Skyler. In my defense, I think the Perfesser also forgets about his nephew-ward Skyler on the regular. Anyway, there’s absolutely no chance he’s going to take this child on a cruise with him. He won’t even buy a second piece of living room furniture so they can eat in front of the TV together.

Hi and Lois, 1/19/24

I feel like I come across on this blog as some kind of hardass for comedic structure but I’m really not! Take this Hi and Lois, for instance: I honestly enjoyed it even though it contains literally nothing that you could call a “joke” per se. Hi’s contorted body language on the coach is great, but the punctuation mark-less “AAAEEUGH” is what really seals the deal for me. Sometimes comics can just be vibes and that’s OK!

Mary Worth, 1/19/24

“Used to be you could just skip town and move to California and change your name to an obviously fake one and that was that! Nobody would blink an eye! You could start over! Then came Mr. Science sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. And that’s when you have to start poisoning people with muffins.”