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Hi and Lois, 9/27/26

My first impression reading this was that Hi seems so youthful in the first panel in the second row that he must be imagining himself as a Little Leaguer; but the mustache on the outfielder means that’s not right, and I realized that, of course, he’s imagining himself as a Major League Baseball player, and MLB players are on average men in their mid to late 20s, younger than Hi and certainly much younger than me, but not children by any means. It’s a lot to think about! And I honestly would prefer to think about this, to muse melancholy on middle age, and not think at all about the throwaway panel that includes what I guess is supposed to be Hi dozing off thinking happy thoughts but it looks like a portrait of JFK zooted out of his mind on all the off-label drugs they were giving him for his back pain plus whatever sex pills he was taking. I have to admit, not thinking about that is getting more and more difficult.

Family Circus, 9/27/26

We criticize Marvin a lot for all the piss and shit jokes it does, but honestly its worst sin is just to be so in your face about it. Like, here’s a Family Circus about a carpet remembering all the good times it’s had with the Keane Kids over the years as it’s being driven to the landfill, and only one of the seven little vignettes it’s visualizing involves being peed on. That’s how you elicit a healthy chuckle from the piss joke appreciating community while still getting grandparents to faithfully cut your comic and hang it on the fridge.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 9/27/26

You ever notice that we never see Leroy’s mother? I feel like Loretta gets mad at moments like this not just for the obvious reasons, but because Leroy’s mother’s presumably early death — or perhaps her decision to go no-contact with her son for reasons we could easily guess at — have denied Loretta ammunition in the constant marital battle that is the focus of her every waking thought.

Crankshaft, 9/27/26

Hey, I don’t want to overstep here, but … do you ever get the feeling that, just maybe, everyone involved in the creation of the Funkyverse strips has a terrible inability to feel pleasure, like in a pathological way? Just putting that out there.

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Alice, 9/23/26

Faithful readers know that one of my favorite bits of Alice is the little … caption? extra text? … at the bottom, and its role in the narrative of each strip. Like today, you’re probably wondering: does it mean that Alice’s boyfriend is going to be doing all the driving again? Maybe she can take the bus or an Uber sometimes! Well, no: it turns out that it does mean that. The caption has spoken!

The Lockhorns, 9/23/26

The smile I can accept, but I’m really concerned with whatever Leroy is doing with the non-face parts of his body here. He’s … strutting? Dancing? It’s off-putting. Borderline grotesque. Knock it off, Leroy.

Beetle Bailey, 9/23/26

“What, the kids today can’t get horny from a drawing of a stacked blonde in a little black dress anymore? Huh? What is it that they want? Foot stuff? They like feet? Sexy lady feet, is that what they like? Fine, I guess we’ll give ’em feet.” –The Beetle Bailey division of Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, apparently unaware that the way they draw fingers and toes is actually quite repellent

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Hi and Lois, 9/10/26

Now, look, I more or less enjoyed Forrest Gump as a college-aged moviegoer in 1994, but I wouldn’t say that it had much of a lasting cultural footprint, you know? Certainly not to the extent little kids would be going around quoting it. Just for comparison, an eight-year-old in 2026 quoting Forrest Gump would be like me as an eight-year-old in 1982 quoting … actually, I looked this up, and the Forrest Gump equivalent from 1960 (hit winner of multiple Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director) is Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, one of the greatest movies ever made. I also saw The Apartment for the first time in 1994, but if I had seen it as a child, I’m pretty sure I would’ve loved it then too. A lot of it would’ve gone over my head but the dialogue is pretty accessible, I think. “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise!” I would’ve said, if I had found myself in a situation like Ditto has in today’s strip. It would’ve still been appropriate, and my mother would’ve been charmed by my precocious taste in film instead of vaguely annoyed like Lois is here.

The Lockhorns, 9/10/26

Very longtime and very faithful readers of this blog know that today is my wedding anniversary, and, on the I think justified assumption that Leroy is a last-minute gift shopper, it appears to be the Lockhorns’ anniversary as well. This is even more disturbing than the fact that they’re millennials. This one’s personal.