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Hi and Lois, 10/16/19

Because I’m both a comics obsessive and a transit obsessive, I’m reasonably sure that the only time we’ve ever seen Hi on the subway was during this non-canon crossover event. That tells me that Hi is not on his typical commute, which I assume usually takes him along the auxiliary interstate highway that connects his pedestrian-hostile suburban subdivision to the pedestrian-hostile office park where Foofram Industries has its regional HQ. But not today. Today, Hi has abandoned his car in the parking lot of the outermost stop on the regional transit system and is heading into the city to vanish forever into his new life. This phone call will just serve to postpone by a few precious hours the moment when Lois realizes he’s not coming back and starts calling the cops.

Mary Worth, 10/16/19

Wow, remember back in the ’00s, when downtown Santa Royale was a bleak slum full of thugs and fallen women where Mary was terrified to venture? Well, as in many cities, it became an outpost of Santa Royale’s boho arts community, who were attracted by cheap rents and embraced the aesthetic of the grit they helped displace, leading normies to conclude that the neighborhood was “getting better,” with in turn brought us here, to the final stage of gentrification: tech millionaires living in huge townhomes that take up almost an entire lot, which they presumably demolished the Downtown Women’s Shelter to build.

Judge Parker, 10/16/19

“Then I remembered that we’re, like, bonkers rich! Remember that time we bought an RV on whim that we didn’t need or even really want? So yeah, go ahead and build like three more commercial structures on our vast compound if you want, whatever.”

Funky Winkerbean, 10/16/19

“That’s why I had Bull murdered and made it look like a suicide! Wait, did I say that part out loud?”

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Dick Tracy, 10/15/19

It was all fun and games reading up on the hilarious backstory of Detective Frisk and Sal Monella, but the current storyline has turned out to be kind of enh, mostly involving Frisk tracking down Lily, her birth mother, who turns out to have sold Frisk as a baby as part of some kind of baby-selling ring she’s still connected to that Frisk is investigating, and now she’s pretending to emotionally bond with Frisk so that the ring can … catch up with Frisk, I think? Or something. Anyway, today is notable because said baby-selling bio-mom proves that she’s truly beyond the pale morally by openly lusting after Vitamin Flintheart, who’s a weird gross old man and also already spoken for. Control yourself, Lily! You should go see a production of Our Town to appreciate its metatheatrical commentary on ordinary lives, not to get horny!

Mary Worth, 10/15/19

Speaking of not getting horny, Wilbur and Estelle are strengthening their bond by belting out Sandy Denny’s 1973 folk-rock classic, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” Meanwhile, Iris has been feeling exhausted, possibly because her hot young stud boyfriend’s sexual endurance is outpacing hers. “Maybe you should cut back on your class schedule?” Zak suggests. “And focus your energy on the important stuff? Like sex with me?”

Marvin, 10/15/19

Meanwhile, over in Marvin, Marvin’s grandpa yearns to join his wife in the grave, and honestly: if the alternative is hanging around alive with the rest of his family, who can blame him?

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Gil Thorp, 10/14/19

Well, well, well, looks like we’ve hit the part of this Gil Thorp storyline where the threads we’ve been following to this point weave together to form a seamless narrative whole. In this case we’ve got “Charlie’s overbearing stepdad will help his football prospects whether Charlie wants his help or not” and “what exactly is the deal with the mysterious elder sophomore Chance Macy, anyway,” and the connection is that Chance is a sophomore star and Charlie, a junior, is his backup, and Charlie’s stepdad is going solve the mystery and leave Chance discredited to clear the path for his not-as-good-at-football stepson. Chance lives with his grandparents and there have been some hints that he has some kind of temper (just like that transfer baseball student from a couple years back), and today we learn that Chance and Charlie are apparently the same age despite Chance now being a year behind. I think the answer is clear: Chance murdered his parents in a fit of rage, which is why he’s being raised by his grandparents and also that’s the sort of thing that’ll get you held back a year, probably. Now we’ll find out if Milford can stomach the prospect of winning a championship with a murderous running back! (The answer is clearly yes.)

Hi and Lois, 10/14/19

“I’m glad these helpful informational screens are built into this gas pump,” she continued, speaking loudly enough for any hidden microphones to hear. “It’s good that we’re being bombarded with celebrity gossip 24 hours a day! I don’t like thinking about bad news! I’m very happy!”