Hi and Lois: Good. That color will go perfectly with the Flagstone's lampshade.

Hi and Lois is easily the most interesting legacy strip, if only for its wide variety of tones. It usually settles for simple gags, but occasionally forays into more controversial territory (I can't find it now, but it has explicitly acknowledged global warming in a nonjokey way before) and at times into outright misery, as is the case today.

Seriously, there's no humor content here. This is just a comic about an alcoholic, his unhappy wife and their collapsing marriage. Of course, the timeless state of the comic means that the marriage will never actually collapse, but remain in a perpetually collapsing state. But that only makes it all the more depressing.

Hi and Lois: What's it taste like?

This comic is hilarious because Hi does not have a discerning palette.

Hi and Lois: Why are so many of the movies these days SEQUELS?

Everyone's so miserable in the HiandLoisverse that they can't even enjoy Toy Story 3.

This is not surprising, but it is sad.

Hi and Lois: 24-hour free delivery!

This cartoon is hilarious because Lois has mistaken a themed escort service for an actual babysitting service.

Hi seems to know what's going on, however.

Hi and Lois: I don't like to profile...

After taking aim at communist libraries a few weeks ago, Hi and Lois gives us a very clever defense of racial profiling today. Trixie doesn't LIKE to profile, but who can really deny that buzzing bugs (or darker-skinned human beings) are scarier than fluttering bugs (or lighter-skinned human beings)? It's just the way things are. It's not even really "profiling" at all. It's just the natural order of things, you know?

Hi and Lois: Who's that?!

Since it's already well established that Lois has no problem sleeping with other men, Hi--who has always been the lemonade-out-of-lemons sort--figured she might be open to a threesome. She's not responding as well as he was hoping to the first part of his plan, however. Probably because his plan involves Thirsty.

Hi and Lois: Caw caw

Nothing happy ever seems to happen in the Hiandloisverse anymore. A little bit of actual death, and Funky Winkerbean better start watching its back.

Hi and Lois: Sunbeam deserves a day off ... even a week's vacation once a year.

Even little Trixie knows that giving employees more than a week's worth of vacation per year puts us even further along the slippery slope to socialism.

Wizard of Id: Ahhhh, my sweet sunbeam.

It took years of solitary confinement for Spook to get this bad. Trixie, on the other hand, was born this way.

Hi and Lois: It's not safe to text and cook.

While Lois' comeback makes no actual sense, the amorphous blob of off-white food matter and ripped up pieces of lettuce she's prepared sure do look delightful.

Hi and Lois: I finally got the playroom picked up.

Continuing the thread of existential angst from a couple days ago, here we see what Hi and Lois would have looked like if Albert Camus had decided to go to work for Mort Walker Inc. instead of dying in a car accident.

Hi and Lois: Everything has a cost.

On its face, today's Hi and Lois might seem absurd. But, in fact, it's quite astute. All of the problems facing the country today really can be traced back to the public library, which was the first in a long line of progressive movements designed to lead the United States of America into socialist bondage. Yes, I know it's hard to remember now, but there really was once a time when people were free in this country, back before Obama and civil rights and medicare and social security and feminism and the abolition of slavery and libraries.

Like all of those other programs, and as this comic so beautifully depicts, the purpose of the public library* is to destroy the free market, thus putting every company out of business, thus rendering everybody unemployed, thus forcing people to become dependent on the state, thus providing justification to grow the state even more and impose even more crippling taxes, thus forcing even more dependency, thus making people lazy, thus destroying people's souls, thus destroying religion, thus killing God, thus leading us all into the terrible, gaping maw of destruction, which is, of course, precisely the situation we face today.

*One of the first of which was instituted by that notorious communist, Benjamin Franklin.

Hi and Lois: We can spoon in June!

This comic is hilarious because Hi is planning to engage in an act of physical affection three months from now that might lead to intercourse. Lois, meanwhile, has already given herself an out.

Hi and Lois: You need a shave.

It's at least good to see that Hi appears to be just as disturbed by this as I am.

Hi and Lois: Does Old Man Winter work for the I.R.S.?

See, the snowflakes are Hi's money, and the ground is tax season, and Old Man Winter works for the I.R.S. and is going away for some reason, and tax season, which is the ground, is arriving, from wherever the ground arrives from, that melts snow, which is, um, money. And stuff.*

*No one can torture a tax metaphor like the folks at Mort Walker Inc.

Hi and Lois: Relax, we still have plenty of time.

Considering how horribly mangled Lois's feet are, hiding them just out of panel is probably the way to go.

Also, women are always late for stuff! Ha ha!

Hi and Lois: Irma and I had a big fight.

Ha ha! Marital discord!

Seriously though, even disregarding potentially unintentional alternate readings, Hi and Lois is a pretty depressing comic strip.

Hi and Lois: How long do you think it would take to repaint this kitchen?

This comic is hilarious because Lois is annoyed to be stuck in the regressive, widely sexist culture of the comics section.

Hi and Lois: Would you look at me differently if I took my glasses off?

This comic is hilarious because if you wear glasses no boy will ever look at you, you impressionable young girl you.

Hi and Lois: RIP! KLUNK

This comic is hilarious because bowling balls are heavy.