The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Archive: Hi and Lois

Comments are closed

You guys are going straight to JANI-JAIL (a closet)

Post Content

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/25/22

Exciting developments in Rex Morgan, M.D., everyone! It turns out that vigilantism is not only bad for your rotator cuff, but it’s also illegal, whoops. I’m honestly intrigued by our hero’s insistence not only that being a vigilante is good, but that these guys are his prisoners and his responsibility. Like, a typical superhero’s M.O. is to leave the bad guys he catches tied up for the cops to find, perhaps with a demeaning note taped to their chest. But what does the Street Sweeper have planned for these thugs, if not that? Remember, by day he’s a janitor with a real crappy apartment, so I’m concerned that he doesn’t have the proper facilities to detain these gentlemen, let alone conduct a proper trial. I’m beginning to wonder if he injured his rotator cuff from the summary executions he’s been doing nonstop over the past few months.

Mary Worth, 5/25/22

Uh oh, bad news! Jared will not be able to rely on physical proximity to maintain his hold over Dawn this summer. What if the nerds down at the computer lab turn out to be hotter than hospital-nerds like Jared? We all know Dawn’s object permanence is weak, so what weird and unpleasant passive-aggressive behavior will Jared have to resort to in order to keep her heart?

Hi and Lois, 5/25/22

I am drawing great strength from the facial expressions of both Hi and the ice cream guy in panel two. They are both, each in their own way, extremely over these kids’ shit.

Comments are closed

Grim Saturday

Post Content

Hi and Lois, 5/14/22

As readers of this blog well know, I like that Thirsty has in recent years been allowed to once again be the moderately functional alcoholic he was intended to be when this strip launched in the ’50s. Sometimes this is the crux of the joke, but sometimes it just adds to the strip’s flavor. Like, it’s funny that Thirsty is standing next his friend like, “Doing a chore, huh? Couldn’t be me” but it’s funnier that he’s probably had a buzz on since about 10 am.

Mary Worth, 5/14/22

I certainly hope that Helen has slipped her resignation letter under the door of the School Management office and is heading out of Santa Royale forever tonight. How could you ever show your face around town if people knew you held lifelong feelings for Ian? Toby, of course, is far beyond human shame now, but Helen must still have a shred of dignity.

Pluggers, 5/14/22

You’re a plugger if your life isn’t worth living anymore because the only people who still talk to you are the ones coordinating the elaborate series of pharmaceutical interventions necessary to keep you alive.

Comments are closed

You’re going to be doing the voice in your head for at least a week

Post Content

Blondie, 5/12/22

You ever stare at a sentence for a long stretch of time and become increasingly convinced that it doesn’t really make sense as something a native speaker of 21st century American English would say? Probably not, as you don’t have a semi-successful comics blog you’ve got to churn out content for every day, but the point is that “How much are you wanting?” fell into that category, for me, until I finally convinced myself that it would sound right if it were in a comical fake Irish accent from an old-timey movie. “How much are ye wanting then, lads?” See, doesn’t that sound better? Or at least funnier? Wouldn’t it be funnier if Dagwood spoke in a comical Irish accent? Have I finally cracked the code necessary to read Blondie every day and find it funny, after all these years?

Hi and Lois, 5/12/22

“Is that why your face is constantly immobile, your mouth perpetually in an O of surprise? The price of beauty is wearing a dead mask, every day of your life?”

The Lockhorns, 5/12/22

The long, unkempt beards of Greek philosophers were meant to signify that they were so invested in the life of the mind that they couldn’t be bothered to concern themselves with ordinary, quotidian matters like hygiene, and in the early 20th century, many men at Ivy League colleges indulged in a similar aesthetic impulse for similar reasons, making a vogue out of a disheveled, slovenly style of dress. In the 1940s, students at the elite women’s colleges cast off their girdles and began to imitate their male counterparts, and a key part of their new uniform was a baggy cardigan referred to as a “sloppy joe sweater.” This is a long-winded way of me saying that fine, I admit it, I was wrong, the Lockhorns are definitely not Millennials.