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Archive: Hi and Lois

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Take the middle way, neither ho ho ho nor humbug

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Dennis the Menace and Curtis, 12/19/24

Well, I guess yesterday’s Curtis is the start of an arc about how the kids today celebrate holidays differently, using technology, and I like that Greg’s exhausted facial expression tells us what he thinks about this but he still will only say philosophically that the only constant is change, all is vanity, etc., etc. Dennis the Menace put cyber-Christmas advocacy in the mouth of its most annoying character as well, but otherwise doesn’t outwardly condemn it. And if they won’t, I will. This is tacky and it sucks! Curtis, that app was a trick to get you to download cryptomining malware onto your phone, and Margaret, you are texting with a scammer in Southeast Asia who will convince you to send him your parents’ credit card and Social Security numbers by the end of the year.

Gearhead Gertie, 12/19/24

Speaking of celebrating Christmas differently, I’m not actually that interested in the fact that instead of enjoying classic modern-day Christmas tales Gertie would rather — surprise! — consume NASCAR-related content. I’m more curious about who the other two people on this couch are. Do Gertie and her increasingly alienated husband have [squints] a daughter and a grandson, or perhaps two grandchildren, and they’re staying together for their benefit? Or are these just two people they recruited off the street because they needed a “rule of three” setup for Gertie’s punchline? (Fun fact: Gertie thinks the “rule of three” is when Dale Earnhardt descends from heaven and implements his thousand-year kingdom on Earth).

Hi and Lois, 12/19/24

Remember: due to the oddnesses of comic-book time, we’ve been enjoying Trixie’s antics since the Eisenhower Administration, but she’s been alive for less than a year. This is the first time she’s ever experienced winter. She thinks Sunbeam, her only friend, is old and dying. Pretty bleak!

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Wednesday is for dumb kids

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Hi and Lois, 12/11/24

Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold the damn phone, six months ago Hi seemed genuinely depressed to not receive golf gifts for Father’s Day, back when the kids unilaterally cancelled Father’s Day. Anyway, if Ditto is going to try to do some “turnabout is fair play” on gifts, Hi’s move should be to say “Hey, remember when you cancelled Father’s Day?”

Dennis the Menace, 12/11/24

OK, I’m just genuinely flummoxed by this one. Only thing I’ve got is that Dennis has the Benjamin Button disease and he used to be much taller, and his shrunken, aging brain is vaguely remembering this? I feel menaced in my confusion, but not in a fun way.

Mary Worth, 12/11/24

Mary has had a lot of experience interacting with Dawn, so she knows she has to remind Dawn that she recently became vegan to set the stage for the meal. That girl has a lot of fine qualities, but object permanence simply isn’t one of them.

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Lotta carnivore action today

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Suburban Fairy Tales, 12/9/24

I was going to give you the deep lore behind today’s strip but I think it’s pretty obvious from context, right? Third little pig and lady wolf are in an unconventional species-crossing relationship, pig’s mom doesn’t approve, yadda yadda yadda, you get it. It’s an allegorical tale about the dangers of prejudice, except the she-wolf is clearly contemplating killing and eating the mom pig in the panel three, so honestly maybe it’s an allegorical tale about the dangers of not being prejudiced enough.

Rhymes With Orange, 12/9/24

Snakes are obligate carnivores and any snake of that size is going to primarily eat mice, so I’m really curious about the legal situation here. Is the snake on trial for murder? Surely a member of any species that exclusively eats mice would, in a civilization where mice have legal rights, immediately become an outlaw and face extermination, right? On the other hand, maybe this is a legal system like the ancient Norse one, where harms are weighed and fines assessed based on the varying social positions of the interested parties. In such a case, it makes sense to have a judge from a completely different phylum from either of the parties to the case, and they should be willing to put up with a bit of delay in return for his objectivity.

Hi and Lois, 12/9/24

Yes, by saying that he wanted to watch something other than what his mother and sister were watching, Ditto hoped his mother would give him permission to go to his parents’ bedroom, so he could watch the thing he wanted to watch. I know I can’t shut up about the new post-punchline Hi and Lois being good, but I do feel like I need a little more to work with than this.