Hi and Lois, 10/17/26

A “flash mob” used to be what you’d call it when a bunch of people agreed on the internet to show up in a public place and do some kind of silly dance or something, but now it’s what the local news calls smash-and-grab crime sprees while narrating the grainy smash-and-grab crime spree footage they love to put into heavy rotation. Which version is going to show up in the Flagston driveway? Based on the very different expressions on Hi and the teens’ faces, opinions differ!

Dennis the Menace, 10/17/26

“That’s right, Dennis. It’s feet-loaf! It’s ground up feet, and we’re making you eat it! What’re you gonna do, cook for yourself?”

Wizard of Id, 10/17/26

Do you guys remember Wizard of Id, the goofy, whimsical comic in a pseudomedieval setting? Well, uh. They’re, uh, “going through it,” over there, as the kids might say. They’re going through it pretty bad!

Folks, your comment of the week in a moment, but first … if you are a paid subscriber to the site, you might be seeing some emails asking your to reset your password that you didn’t initiate. It seems some bots are knocking on the door to the site by initiating password resets. There’s nothing they can really do that would be bad, and I’m trying to figure out how to stop the annoyance, but in the meantime don’t click on anything in those emails, is my advice, but do send me a note if you get one for my information.

ANYWAY, with that high-tech info out of the way, here’s this week’s comment of the week!

“Hi spent the day trying to hang himself with his tie, so he’s probably not up for Date Night.” –MKay

And the very funny runners up!

“A different comic strip might’ve taken this idea and did something kind of fun with it, like show old versions of the character or show a similar character from another comic strip. Maybe time it to run on an anniversary and have some tongue-in-cheek joke about, ‘Boy, wouldn’t it be crazy if I looked like that!’ The Blondie creative team decided to make everyone deeply uncomfortable and unsettled instead. On the upside, this might drive some traffic to my Dagwood-themed DeviantArt page.” –ComicallyChallenged

“The third ‘AI’ image of Dagwood clearly shows the Mark of the Beast. Only the computer can see the true depths of his evil, the unlimited sin of gluttony.” –Voshkod

“Don’t worry, Toby, these unfaithful hybrids of bird and man will get what’s coming to them — parrots aren’t adapted to long-distance flight like, say, albatrosses, so their attempt to fly to Maui will undoubtedly end with them falling into the ocean and drowning due to exhaustion.” –Vulpes

“Nobody wants Dagwood to get plastic surgery — and the chewing gum that’s supposed to make your jawline sharper doesn’t really work. But that hair? You know you can just go to a slightly better barber and get a better haircut, right, Dagwood? You really don’t have to live that way!” –BigTed

“It’s a board game. They use electrified tweezers and if they touch the sides, his nose lights up. Hilarity ensues. Seriously, it’s been around for over fifty years and you haven’t heard about it?” –Where’s Rocky.

“Apparently Hi is low enough on the corporate ladder that Foofram only checks in on him at 2 P.M.” –Maltmash3r

“I have questions: (1) Is murder illegal in Norway? (2) Does killing an arms dealer count as murder in Norway? (3) Norway has a huge arms industry. Were the murdered arms dealers permitted by Norway to deal arms, i.e., were they legitimate businessmen or ‘legitimate businessmen’? (4) Does Norway recognize varying degrees of homicide based on the criminal status of the victim, i.e., does Norway excuse vigilantism? (5) If so, is the criminal status of the victim determined before or after the murder? (6) Does murdering arms dealers violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977? (7) With a population of 5.6 million and murder rate of 0.72 per 100,000 people as of 2023, is there a clinically depressed detective inspector in currently investigating an anomalous spike in murders over the past few months? (8) What are the diplomatic and legal implications if the United States, knowing who the murderer is, refuses to extradite the murderer per its treaty with Norway? Asking for a legal-themed newspaper comic strip that might want to just shift focus back to traffic scofflaws.” –Charterstone: Dune

“Mother Goose, who knows that her dogs are incipient fascists and also pets who cannot legally make purchases, has wisely set up a backwards treadmill so they can’t progress past the beige rectangle.” –matt w

“Nothing can save the ‘joke’ in today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, but it helps that Grimm himself looks horrified across both panels at the words coming out of his mouth. Perhaps, like Nikki in Obsession, on some level this dog realizes that the thoughts that dictate his behavior are not actually his own. Grimm, indeed!” –Kevyn on Video

“Come up with a passable pun on ‘fascism’ or ‘dictator’ but find Hitler is too charged a name to use as a setup for anodyne wordplay? Well that’s where Mussolini comes in! Mussolini: real bad guy, slightly less famous for it!” –BananaSam

“Ms. Blips did not sign up for making coffee! She signed up for war crimes! And healthcare! But mostly war crimes!” –Ettorre

“Women, amirite? Always wanting to spend time with you, enjoying a tasty meal in a pleasant atmosphere, when all you really want is the sweet release of alcohol and/or death! Hi and Lois, the comic about bipolar disorder, delivers another rueful chuckle and/or primal scream of bone-deep suffering. It’s funny because we each live in a hell of our own making!” –a.

“I could confront Ian, but that would be too rational. It’s better I look ‘strong’ and ‘independent’ by sitting passively by until I’m overcome with doubt and worry. Yes, that plan just makes too much sense!” –2+2=7

“‘Its just high school sports, why would I get emotionally invested in that?’ Good question Gil Thorp, very good question.” –pugfuggly

“Jughaid is getting too big for his britches, and Loweezy has two options to rein him back into reality: deliver a lecture on the environmental impact of the many rockets now used for smaller, routine missions to guilt him out of his dream, or try to build a soundstage of the moon in an old barn. Some nonzero percentage of Hootin’ Holler probably see the moon landing as being staged, so she could get some help setting it up, as long as it’s for a practical joke on Jughaid.” –InvasionOfTheZIM

“Gertie was very disappointed to learn that Carson isn’t called that because he’s literally the son of a car. Turns out it’s biologically impossible for a motor vehicle to impregnate you, and that’s why Gertie doesn’t have children.” –Schroduck

“He wants a trip to the moon but we can only afford a $460,000 ticket on a non-orbital flight from Virgin Galactic. It sucks being poor.” –Hibbleton

“Mr. Weatherbee was right to purchase the combination spring-loaded toupee-and-tie combo for those times when he has to react to Archie’s hilarious shenanigans. Sure, he could have also sprung for the wacky ‘leaping pince-nez,’ but that would have been putting a hat on a hat, you know? Sometimes you have to know when less is more.” –Chance

“I would have been wary of moving into an apartment with an unlockable swing door, but maybe that’s just me. I’m wacky that way.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’ve been reading this blog for many years, which means I’ve also been getting occasional updates on Luann for many years. Theoretically, I should know who most of the main characters are and how they live. But I don’t. I just don’t. For instance, I have no idea who or what ‘Tara’ is in this context. Is the dark-haired guy with glasses housesitting for actress Tara Reid? Or are they all somehow living in the famous, fictional Tara plantation from Gone With the Wind?” –Joe Blevins

“Jughead is wisely displaying a mati, the Greek talisman against misfortune and the evil eye, in order to prevent Moose’s baleful gaze from falling upon him. Sadly Archie has taken no such precautions.” –TheDiva

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Luann, 10/16/26

OK, fine, I admit it: I’m a little unfair with my treatment of sexuality in Luann, complaining both about weirdly prudish yet ribald extended bits but also about straight-up shower intercourse. I guess I have to accept the compromise position between the two, where two young people eye each other amorously but then some guy who doesn’t even live there bursts into the room because he has to take a huge dump real bad. “Shit quickly, sir!” one of the aforementioned young people implores.

Archie, 10/16/26

I feel like it’s not great that Mr. Weatherbee simply treats Moose as an unstoppable force of nature and thinks anyone he injures simply should’ve gotten out of his way. If nothing else, this is a potentially serious legal liability for Riverdale High! If Moose is a mere beast without moral agency who can never be held accountable, why does he roam the halls freely?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/15/26

I’m sorry, the inhabitants of Hootin’ Holler speak in an exaggerated rustic faux-hillbilly dialect, so I simply do not accept that Loweezy would utter the sentence “Recent events have raised Jughaid’s already unrealistic expectations.” I do, however, accept that the inhabitants of Hootin’ Holler, connected to the outside world only via feeble radio signals and whatever news they get by word of mouth from flatlander visitors, would consider April’s Artemis II lunar flyby to be “recent events.”

Gearhead Gertie, 10/15/26

I love how Gertie has basically the same vacant, cheerful expression in both panels here. She loves Dale Earnhardt! And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so she loves Carson Hocevar, for sincerely flattering Dale Earnhardt!

Gil Thorp, 10/15/26

“Plus, I’m a coach, not a player, so I’ll be on the sidelines and won’t have any physical contact with him. Have fun getting concussed or maimed or whatever!”

Dick Tracy, 10/14/26

Dick Tracy has a new artist, longtime Tracy superfan Howie Noel, and I am here to report that, in this house, we are now Howie Noel superfans, as this week has reliably delivered panel after panel of real fucked-up shit, which I mean in the most complimentary possible sense. A detective with a neanderthal-level brow ridge and free-flowing beads of sweat. A weird pinheaded nurse in an archaic outfit. A tiny man the size of a ventriloquist’s dummy, or possibly just an actual ventriloquist’s dummy that the nurse is operating. The tiny man/dummy has unpleasantly long fingernails, by the way. A+ all around!

Mary Worth, 10/14/26

OK, so, Toby is still crashing out over the entirely not real Ian/Mary rumors, but let’s look on the bright side for her: artistically, she’s moved on from her “hideous grey animal-shaped blobs” period to her “mawkish painted animal figurines” period, which should be more marketable if nothing else.

Beetle Bailey, 10/14/26

Look, I know that General Halftrack’s coffee tastes can’t possibly be what anyone would call sophisticated, but I refuse to believe that even the most skilled practitioner could make anything in that circa 1975 Mr. Coffee machine that would live up to the name “barista.”

Hi and Lois, 10/14/26

Oh, so Chip isn’t competent to babysit when Hi’s just trying to get some work done at the office, but he’s perfectly capable of doing so when Lois is horny, huh? Interesting. Interesting.