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Hi and Lois, 10/8/22

A fun fact is that the Major League Baseball postseason expanded to a multi-round playoff format in 1969, and there’s no timeline where Hi and Lois are middle-aged parents of a teen and infant in the year 2022 but they were also alive then, which means that Lois is engaging in some nostalgia for a constructed past she can’t even personally remember. “Oh, I wish I lived back in the 1950s or ’60s, when men paid attention to their wives instead of dumb old sports!” she thinks, in one of the most impressively delusional episodes I’ve seen in a syndicated newspaper comic strip.

Gasoline Alley, 10/8/22

Gasoline Alley has spent weeks now, like genuine weeks, my God it’s gone on forever, on this boogie-woogie piano guy, and I get the feeling that he’s a real person or closely based one, but honestly I cannot summon the energy to figure out who. Anyway, as the one strip I deigned to share with you should indicate, his whole deal is about how playing music is a fun, joyful activity for everyone! Thank goodness Rufus and Joel are here to remind you that the real world of music is brutal and violent, and no place for children or the weak.

Daddy Daze, 10/8/22

LOOK THIS BABY DOES NOT KNOW WORDS, LET ALONE LETTERS. HE IS NOT MAKING UP NEW LETTERS. HE JUST ISN’T.

I REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CHARADE ANY LONGER. GOOD DAY TO YOU ALL

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Hello y’all! It’s the first Friday of the month and that means if you are in or near Los Angeles, you should be coming to The Internet Read Aloud, live on stage at the Clubhouse, at 1607 N. Vermont! I am hosting and our comics include newcomer Jeena Bloom, show fav Patrick Susmilch, and superstar Laser of the Doubleclicks! Don’t miss it, man! What else are you doing on a Friday night? Nothing cool, I bet!

You know what is cool, though? This week’s comment of the week.

“White rice with hamburger gravy with a side of roasted carrot? Sounds like something you’d feed a puppy with indigestion, which … [scans Zak’s face] checks out, actually.” –pastordan

Also cool? Those very funny runners up:

“My Mom didn’t want me, after all; it was some other lady calling her son. This neighborhood is lousy with Elmos.” –Pozzo

“With biology having failed to do the job through heart disease or diabetes despite decades of ludicrously terrible diet, it’s up to physics to finally kill Dagwood Bumstead no matter what.” –jroggs

“Iris is limited to the number of guests she can entertain at one time, as she possesses only one square plate, two glasses, a bent olive fork, and a single dining chair. Zak graciously overlooks these things and is content to sit on a stack of phone books, but privately he wishes Iris had supplied a table napkin, as he inexpertly tries to maneuver the ‘white rice with hamburger gravy’ to his mouth.” –Charterstoned

“Say what you want about Count Weirdly’s ethically-questionable methods (and his pathetic alibi), but he’s just a White Hat Hacker trying to do some good in the world. While the Animal Forest does absolutely nothing to stop Brendan Beaver from watching the most filthy and degrading rodent-porn available on the dark web, this internet vigilante has used his mad skills to instead fill the Beaver household with chess wholesomeness. And before you say it, that Octopus asked to be put in a cage, okay?” –Carsick Yankee

“God damn Weirdly, pick a menacing pet and go with it. You think Blofeld shows up for an evil plot with a whole petting zoo on his lap? Maybe that’s why he’s running SPECTRE from a volcano lair, and you’re … what’s your scheme this time? [skims, shakes head]” –Dan

“My Nan used to make this for me … but then I grew teeth and she made me real food.” –Hibbleton

“We got a brief glimpse to a multi-ethnic world of Mary Worth, where people are allowed to refer to their grandmothers with culturally diverse nicknames. Luckily, that portal of madness was immediately closed shut.” –Ettorre

“Judging by those biceps I see that Zak has entered the ‘spends his days working out rather than personally running his business because the VC money he’s already pocketed guarantees he won’t be materially affected by any downturns’ phase of tech overlordship.” –Effluvius Erratus

“If The Phantom was nothing but a wandering, flaming skeleton every single day, readership would skyrocket. It would create a media empire that nothing could stop.” –BeckoningChasm

“I know that the ‘pirate treasure chest’ is just a trope that has little to do with the historical reality of privateering, but I’m tickled that this particular chest seems to contain engagement rings still in the box, as if Blue Beard just raided Tiffany’s.” –pugfuggly

“A distinction should be made between a skeleton that is burning because you have just set it alight with a fireball, and a skeleton that is alight from some internally generated burning and eternal flame of pure hatred fueled, most likely, by natural gas. The menace level posed by the latter would be much more menacing, especially once their carbon footprint is appropriately accounted for.” –Calvin’s Cardboard Box

“‘That why you shaved your head?’ is a shocking piece of dialogue, because it implies the existence of a single reason for one Dick Tracy character to look at another and think, ‘Gee, there’s a funny-lookin’ guy.’” –Vice President John Adams

“Woah, woah, sir, you’re gonna get all emotional about this. Oh wait, you’re Sam Driver. Never mind.” –made of wince

“Zak is really desperate to get out of eating the glop Iris prepared, but he didn’t think his plan through.” –taig

“‘Man bun’ is so culturally … wow. Passe, sarcastic, popular among people who are not, but someday may end up as, the Lockhorns. Tomorrow, Loretta can retaliate when Leroy is off to the post office, asking him if he’ll be using a ‘tramp stamp.’” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Loretta is just feeding Leroy human hair for dinner now, such is the depth of her contempt” –SideshowJon

“In a vain attempt to make a happy moment, the Mary Worth team cut off the rest of Iris’s thought: ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’” –Voshkod

And finally, I must give a shoutout to the faithful reader who posts only as Anonymous who took a look at Zak’s proposal stance and tried to figure out where everyone was in relationship to each other in that panel:

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

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Mary Worth, 10/7/22

Ladies! You want to know what it takes to get a man to “put a ring [not pictured] on it”? Well, apparently you just have to cook the same simple meal that his teenage babysitter made for him years ago when he was a sad neglected child. It’s a real monkey’s paw situation, in that you get what you want but also get a very clear picture of what role exactly you play in your man’s emotional life. Anyway, I’m guessing Iris is going to put off this proposal until she can track down Nancy the babysitter and defeat her in single combat.

Gil Thorp, 10/7/22

There have been plenty of Gil Thorpian shakeups this year, but we haven’t had a chance yet to assess how they’ve affected Gil’s coaching, which is, despite appearances, what he’s actually paid to do. Well, it appears that Gil strolled into the locker room on day one of football practice and announced “If I were on offense, I would simply advance the ball more than 10 yards per set of downs, and ultimately either carry or pass it into the end zone.” And thus “the Thorp Special” was born! Looks like Goshen hasn’t figured out how to stop it yet!

Mark Trail, 10/7/22

I haven’t been super engaged in the current Mark Trail plot about a roadsider tiger “sanctuary”/cult, and, frankly, it looks like Mark hasn’t been either, and now he’s got a better offer. Wouldn’t it be great if comics characters could just peace out of stories and jump into new ones at a whim? Why not! It’s the ’20s, we’re all Zoomers with ADHD now, let’s just go with the flow, baby!

The Lockhorns, 10/7/22

“What did you serve this on … a man bun? A bun made out of man? Did you get that To Serve Man alien cookbook from that Twilight Zone episode, and use its recipes for ‘man bun’ as a guide for baking buns out of human flesh? Did you kill a bunch of men in order to cook them and feed them to me? Is our kitchen a crime scene? Are there more victims than I could possibly imagine?”