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Hi and Lois, 4/13/24

Two things you have to keep in mind when reading today’s Hi and Lois: (a) despite my many jokes about how Trixie is an eternal baby who’s been an infant for 70 years now, we have to understand that, in the world of the strip, she’s actually less than a year old, and (b) the Flagston family dog is named Dawg. Which means that at some point, possibly quite recently, these kids decided to name their baseball team after the dog, but now that there’s something new and exciting on the scene in terms of cute nonverbal family members, they’re willing to just throw out their old name and take on a new one. It makes me sick and I’m just glad Dawg’s not here to see it.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/13/24

Children have long been expected to contribute economically to their households at a pretty young age, particularly in poorer, developing societies. The real unnerving thing here is not that Jughaid’s trying to help pay his way, but the question of where, in a town whose economy is entirely based on criminality, he got the money.

Daddy Daze, 4/13/24

OK, fine, I laughed at this. See, the joke is that the Daddy Daze baby isn’t potty trained, so he doesn’t really see the point of the toilet. He can just poop whenever and wherever he wants, he doesn’t need a special piece of furniture for it! If Marvin tried to pull this off, I’d be furious, but Daddy Daze doesn’t go to the poop joke well too often so I’ll allow it.

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Gasoline Alley, 4/10/24

You know, after all these years, I still experience the joy of discovery from reading the newspaper comics. Or, well, at least sometimes I read something like today’s Gasoline Alley, sigh heavily, and then Google “gasoline alley family tree” in hopes of making sense of it, but then am just a little bit charmed when I find a graphic like this:

That comes from a page on Hobbylark dot com that also includes an annotated timeline of important events in the strip lore, such as “Wilmer admits to being a sap, a wart, and a drip, but claims the Army did a job on him!” (November 20, 1945), “Corky and Hope move into a new apartment – landlord is Pert!” (May 6, 1954), and “Melba decides to take advantage of leap year to move Rufus along towards a wedding” (July 5, 1976, and yet somehow Melba is now the mayor and still hasn’t sealed the deal). Anyway, from this documentation I have confirmed that Sheezix and Corky are brothers, and Corky runs the diner (in fact, according to that timeline, 1950 was the “year of the Diner”). And because Corky has decided to embrace the town name change, that means that the coming Gasoline Alley vs. Electric Acres civil war will literally pit brother against brother, so I guess I’m finally coming around to being interested in it.

Judge Parker, 4/10/24

“He’s going to kill your mother, April. Then he’s going to kill you! The he goes after Charlotte, your daughter! It never ends! He’ll just keep going after you or your female relatives! Your male relatives will be fine! Certainly any of your relatives who happen to be the title character in the strip are safe! But it’s the principle of the thing!”

Hi and Lois, 4/10/24

Big news, everyone! Trixie seems to have grasped the concept of the linear flow of time! Also, Hi and Lois did a strip without a joke, but I guess that’s not “big news” per se.

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Family Circus, 3/31/24

Some might think that Billy’s smug expression in the second panel here is just because he thought of a good (i.e., very bad) pun for his little fill-in cartoon. Those people aren’t familiar with what a little shit Billy is. It’s actually because he thought “Jesus is the Son, and he’s rising … hey, you know who else is the son? Me! Easter is the day for all of us sons, doing our thing, getting recognition for it! Except Jeffy, obviously. And the other one, the one who doesn’t talk, what’s his name.”

Hi and Lois, 3/31/24

Did you think you were going to be able to get through one sacred holiday without your terrible children ruining it by being little turds? Hi and Lois, the edgy modern newspaper comic for today’s cynical world, is here to deliver a resounding no on that point.