Note the can: Irma wants the living room painted an inky black, like her soul

Hi and Lois, 1/25/14

The Thurstons are meant to serve as the barren, dysfunctional foils to the loving and fecund Flagstons, what with their constant arguments and cycle of alcoholism and codependency. I’m not sure which small detail in today’s strip sells this better: the plant on the credenza, which long ago withered and died from neglect but still sits out in the living room because nobody is willing to deal with it, or the framed picture of a football, hanging in a prominent spot one would normally assign to photos of one’s wedding or beloved family or something, presumably there as a defiant statement that Thirsty likes watching sports and getting bombed more than anything else in the world.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/25/14

How things have changed for the Tuttles, the couple who have come to Hootin’ Holler to grift the gullible inhabitants under the cloak of religion! Five years ago, in more optimistic times, they looked at a fancy hat as a potential moneymaking tool; now they can only see it as a cost sink.

Momma, 1/25/14

It’s pretty sad for both Francis and Momma’s crude art style is that literally the only way I could recognize this sickly figure as Momma’s younger son was the withering contempt in which the strip holds him.

This post originally appeared as "Note the can: Irma wants the living room painted an inky black, like her soul" on The Comics Curmudgeon, which is the best blog on the Internet.