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Hi and Lois, 9/2/23

If you want a glimpse of how in mid-century America, syndicated newspaper cartooning used to be your ticket to a comfortable life, consider the central position the great suburban participatory leisure sports of golf and tennis hold in our legacy strips! It’s a different time now, but these strips can still teach us a lot about the folkways of suburban Connecticut and similar communities, and if I’m reading today’s Hi and Lois right, those places are on the verge of civil war. Hi thinks he can just ride this one out on the golf course, but there will come a time, and soon, where he’ll have to take a side.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/2/23

Oh ho, it looks like Rene, aka “Professor Mirakle,” is back to tie up some loose ends, possibly by murdering his erstwhile disciple Mud! Ha ha, everyone will be real sorry they didn’t accept his apologies, once they find his bullet-ridden corpse in this hotel room three days from now! Honestly, though, it seems much more likely that Rene is just trying to get a cut of the money from Mud’s apparently quite lucrative Li’l Fergus character and the songs he co-wrote and/or inspired through fake guru powers. It would be funny to see an attempted murderer make use of the legal system to enforce his intellectual property claims, but honestly, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

Between Friends, 9/2/23

Sorry to this lady who is being abandoned by all her friends and family, but I will never get over the phrase “We live in a global world.” Do we? Is it a global world we live in? Is it really? Is that why you can use a globe to depict the world with such uncanny accuracy?

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/30/23

I guess Mud Mountain Murphy’s apology tour has now become Mud Mountain Murphy’s relentless attempt to extract forgiveness from Truck, which isn’t exactly in the spirit of humility and self-abnegation that Professor Mirakle preached, I don’t think. Mud has apparently decided to check in at the Glenwood Hotel, which is where Truck sheltered in place after contracting some kind of not-COVID respiratory virus in the spring of 2020. It’s a real shithole, which is why it was the perfectly depressing setting for a roots country tune that went unpredictably viral, which ironically means that, despite being in better financial straits, Truck feels honor-bound to just live there permanently now. Anyway, I can’t remember if the owner was originally one Glenwood’s surprisingly large contingent of roots country maniacs before all this happened; I’d like to imagine that he was more a classic rock guy, or maybe into Motown, but was compelled to get way into the roots country scene after his establishment got RootsTok famous, which would explain both his pompadour/sideburns lewk and his clear knowledge of the Mud-Truck feud’s current status.

Six Chix, 8/30/23

I love that this dog is derisively telling his owner to “tell it to the postman, dude.” The Postal Service is of course the mortal enemy of the canine race, and a dog can imagine no better way to degrade you than to suggest that you voluntarily interact with one of its employees.

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Gil Thorp, 8/24/23

“Take it up with mother nature, coach! Ever since the Great Blight killed most of the trees, we can’t spare wood for frivolous purposes like ceremonial bonfires. And if scientists don’t figure out how to extract oxygen from the ocean soon, I think we’re all going to be too fatigued to engage in vigorous athletic activity anyway.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/24/23

This is the moment when Wanda realizes that neither of these guys is on the verge of ordering anything and she definitely does not have to keep standing there.

Mary Worth, 8/24/23

Thanks for being the voice of moral clarity, Eve! It wasn’t right that Greta was dognapped, no matter what people say. Who’s saying that it was right? Well, I’m not sure, but I be we could start some rumors that seem plausible enough. Was it Toby? It was Toby, wasn’t it? She and Ian don’t seem like “dog people,” if you know what I mean (I mean they’re monsters).