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Archive: Hi and Lois

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Walker-Browne strips to kick off your weekend

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Beetle Bailey, 10/18/24

This Beetle Bailey honestly feels kind of grim to me, as banal as it seems on the surface. Sure, Sarge is joking around with Beetle in a way that alludes, in a vaguely threatening manner, to the power he holds over his subordinates, as is his wont, but he’s not glowering or even looking up from his paperwork to make eye contact as he does it. Instead, he’s efficiently taking care of some of his less glamorous duties as a non-commissioned officer and not getting overly emotionally involved in Beetle’s day-to-day life. Maybe all the work he did with Dr. Bonkus on his anger issues finally paid off.

Hi and Lois, 10/18/24

Sorry, Trixie! You’re damned to eternal infancy, and while your baby’s brain may somehow generate adult-level cognition, you will never develop even rudimentary speech capabilities. That means you can’t engage in sophisticated bargaining with your brother in scenarios like this. Thought balloons won’t cut it!

Hagar the Horrible, 10/18/24

Uhhh, no? Because it’s facing the other way? And because of gravity? Idiot.

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Thursday is for phones

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Dick Tracy, 10/17/24

One of the subtler conundrums created by the “comic-book time” phenomenon is the question of how the characters themselves experience it. Like, is Dick Tracy a guy in his late 40s or early 50s who’s been battling weird deformed gangsters for a couple decades? Or did he, like the comic that bears his name, come into existence in 1938, meaning that he’s been at this longer than most of us have been alive, and he’s tired, so tired, of these weirdos’ whole deal? His attitude in today’s strip really suggests the latter. “Oh, what’s that, is there a new hitman in town? A real freak with a mirror for a face who calls himself Mr. Mirror? Should I get excited? Scared? Should I even bother pulling my gun out of my pocket? No, go ahead and answer that call, I can wait.”

Dennis the Menace, 10/17/24

There’s a lot that bugs me about the characterization of Margaret in Dennis the Menace, but a big one is that they need to decide which misogynist stereotype she is exactly. Is she a prissy, humorless, controlling know-it-all and shrew? Or is she empty-headed, vapid, and vain? I feel she veers wildly from lane to lane and they need to pick one.

Hi and Lois, 10/17/24

Ha ha, yes, the teens! The teens are the ones with the phone problem! Definitely not me, a 50-year-old man, or adults younger than me, or adults older than me! None of us have unhealthy relationships with our devices, and definitely social gatherings of mature adults feature exactly as much staring at small screens with varying degrees of surreptitiousness as they did 15 years ago! It’s the teens, I tell ya, the teens!

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It is, quite literally, the freakin’ weekend

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Mary Worth, 10/12/24

God, I hope Jimmy is with Estelle in spirit. I hope he’s been following her around for her whole dating journey, and I hope that when she got to Wilbur he recoiled in disgust. He died while on the job so I assume he still has all his cop stuff with him as a ghost, and I hope that every time Estelle and Wilbur began to have sex he reached his ghost hand for his ghost baton, only to realize that as a mere shade he could never break open the man’s bald head with it, so what’s the point. Instead he just has to sit (float?) there and watch. His spectral but furious presence would explain a lot of the bad vibes around that relationship.

Hi and Lois, 10/12/24

I love that the first panel is a bedtime story and the second is happening at least a day later, which meant that the twins have had to time to discuss this. “He’s talking about Mr. Thurston, right?” they presumably asked each other after Hi shut the door. “He’s the tortoise in this situation?” I also like the fact that leaves are beginning to pile up on Thirsty’s inert form. He’s dead, kids! He’s been dead for hours!

Hagar the Horrible, 10/12/24

Hey, guys, want to read a Hagar the Horrible where some people walk into Hagar and Helga’s house and just start fucking? Well, uh, here you go. Happy weekend, everybody!