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Hi and Lois, 8/29/23

Look, I’m just a simple city boy who’s always had his trash collected by a municipal service department, and I don’t understand the wily ways of suburbia with its advanced public-private partnerships and such. That’s why the relationship between Hi and his garbagemen has always puzzled me, as it’s often implied that he’s paying them directly in some way? I always assumed they were contracted by his HOA or something, but now that I find out that it’s actually some kind of anarcho-capitalist situation where different suppliers compete for dominance both by offering superior service for better prices and by using violence to intimidate or eliminate their competitors, I have to admit that I’m a lot more interested.

Blondie, 8/29/23

If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know that inside me are two wolves: one that gripes “Ugh, this long-running legacy comic has been beating the same joke into the ground for decades” and the other that gripes “Wait, this is out of character! Why isn’t this long-running legacy comic strip character using one of the beloved jokes he’s been doing for decades?” Anyway, today the second wolf has triumphed, and I have to say I’m disappointed that the punchline here is “Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if men liked reality TV?” rather than the reveal being that Dagwood was watching America’s Next Top Sandwich or The Real Sandwiches Of Beverly Hills or Love Is Blind And Also They Eat Sandwiches or something.

Dennis the Menace, 8/29/23

Alice shaming her son for not having any friends to play with? A rare menace reversal here.

Dick Tracy, 8/29/23

“A real piece of shit. We all wanted him dead and whoever did this to him should get a medal. Frankly I’m pretty furious the coroner called you down here. Nobody in this locker room is going to testify at trial.”

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Hi and Lois, 8/27/23

All the Walker-Browne golf strips are sad, of course, because they’re about golf when they could be about literally anything else. But this one is particularly sad, I think we can all agree. Look at the huge smile on Thirsty’s face in that last panel! There’s nothing he loves more than spending the day out on the links with his best friend, then relaxing with him together and discussing the game. Hi, meanwhile, is starting to outright panic that Thirsty simply will not go away so he can spend some time with his wife, who (unlike Thirsty) he actually likes.

Dick Tracy, 8/27/23

Look, I know that I complain a lot that Dick Tracy’s glory days of theatrical ultraviolence are sadly far behind it, so I must admit the current Minit Mystery, which apparently involves professional baseball players bludgeoning each other to death in the locker room due to poor on-field performance, is pretty ultraviolent, actually.

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The Phantom, 8/17/23

As noted by me and Uncle Lumpy, the “Death of the Phantom” arc is, after literal years, maybe going to finally end in the Phantom’s death. But not if Babudan has anything to say about it! Look, it’s all dramatic and stuff if you die, O Ghost, but Babudan’s whole deal is that he’s a supporting character in the syndicated newspaper comic strip The Phantom! No more Phantom, no more Babudan! You think he’s going to go out quietly, like Little Orphan Annie, and be satisfied by occasional nostalgia appearances in Dick Tracy? No way, buddy! That’s not how Babudan rolls!

Rhymes with Orange, 8/17/23

Sorry, fellow Gen Xers/Elder Millennials, I know we’re all used to being the “cyber experts” who help our parents download PDFs or whatever, but if you’re going to do jokes about kids, you’ve gotta keep up with the times. These two have never downloaded anything in their lives! This is the streaming generation now!

Mary Worth, 8/17/23

“This beautiful full moon is just making me think of all the people all over the world who are suffering from unjust discrimination, just because they’re werewolves!”

[ALTERNATE JOKE BECAUSE I CAN’T DECIDE IF MARY WOULD BE PRO- OR ANTI-WEREWOLF]

“This beautiful full moon is just making me think of our brave police, who aren’t given the tools they need (silver bullets) to protect law-abiding citizens from werewolves!”

Hi and Lois, 8/17/23

I’m a little unsettled by how proud Hi looks here. “They’re shooting at each other with water guns at point blank range! Kids grow up so fast.”