HI & LOIS

I almost didn't post this, but I'd like to eventually present the complete May 29, 1966 Sunday comics section we began here. 'Hi & Lois' has never been a favorite of mine, but it's usually good for a chuckle and has long been a comforting staple of the funny pages. The payoff in the strip above, however, only tepidly justifies the long build-up.

The strip is relatively young at this point, coming only twelve years after it's 1954 debut. The strip was created by Mort Walker, as writer, and Dik Browne, as artist. It was a spin-off of Walker's 'Beetle Bailey' strip, and if anyone can think of another comic strip spinoff, please let me know. The titular Lois is Beetle's sister. 'Hi & Lois' was more popular in it's early years, earning several peer awards from the National Cartoonist Society, including a Reuben for Browne. Despite it's popularity (it's syndicate website boats 1100 newspapers) it has never migrated much further from it's source, though it did have a short-lived comic series in 1970-71 and was part of the strip reprint paperback boom in the 1970s and early '80s.

The current strip is a true family legacy, as sons Greg and Brian Walker have stepped in for Mort and Chance Browne replaced his late father. I was tickled by this recent daily -