The evolution of the Flagston thermostat

[Hi and Lois, March 18, 2026. Click for a larger view.]

I’ve been noticing the thermostat (or the “thermostat”) in the Flagston house every so often: in 2009, in 2012, and (a partial view) in 2022. Today’s Hi and Lois reveals that the Flagstons have replaced whatever it was they had on their wall with something more recognizable as a thermostat.


[Through the years.]

Did I plan on posting about a comic-strip thermostat this morning? No. Did I have to anyway? Yeah, I did.

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Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, September 29, 2025. Click for a larger view.]

Look at today’s Hi and Lois and you might do a doubletake.

[Hi and Lois, September 29, 2025, revised by me. Click for a larger view.]

In the second (and last) panel of today’s strip, Hi passes the question to Lois, whose facial expression suggests that she’s ill-equipped to answer.

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Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, September 15, 2025. Click for a larger view.]

I have no idea what’s going in today’s Hi and Lois :

~ They’re at home, of course. There’d be no element of surprise if they were in a restaurant. But where did that little table for two come from? Not to mention the picture window and heavy orange drapes, which look like something out of a restaurant.

~ Do Hi’s whiskers, along with his loosened tie, suggest the end of a hard day’s work? Or is Hi growing a beard? And is Lois going to ask that he shave it off?

~ Has Hi come home late? Did Lois know he’d be home late? Is that why he’s the only one eating? Or about to eat? And will he be able to manage that steak without a knife?

~ That changing wall color? No worries: readers of Hi and Lois know that anything can happen in the interstice. But still.

And if the wall can change color in the interstice, I think it’d be nice if Hi were to go take a shave there. After all, Lois has made him that cliché of high-class dining, the steak dinner (because — another cliché — she wants something from him). Maybe Lois could get a knife for Hi in the interstice. A napkin might help too.

[Hi and Lois revised, September 15, 2025. Click for a larger view. A knife and napkin are beyond my editing skills.]

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Recently updated

Hi and Lois and tyranny What was the artist trying to say?

Hi and Lois and tyranny

[Hi and Lois, July 4, 2025.]

Today’s Hi and Lois : wow. The expressions on the three older faces say it all.

*

July 5: After looking at the artist’s Instagram, which includes a watercolor portrait of the word elegance (i.e., the occupant’s current wife in her Hamburglar/Zorro hat), I must admit that I don’t know what his intention was with this strip. But I know that people of various political persuasions have read it as I raed it.

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Comics implosion

[“The Cat’s Meow.” Zippy, June 17, 2025. Click for a larger view.]

In today's Zippy, Griffy reports that an old girlfriend has proposed collaborating on a “domestic” comic strip “modeled closely on Hi & Lois.”

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Trouble on the Hi-Lo line

They must have put someone new on the line this week at Hi-Lo Amalgamated. I submit today’s strip as evidence.

[Hi and Lois, March 20, 2025. Click for a larger view.]

Chip Flagston’s hair, like that of his mother and his siblings, has always been yellow. I’ve revised today’s strip by giving Chip’s hair the color it had last Friday: #e9c54e. Before that it was #e9c64e. But either way, it was “yellow.” And so it will be here:

[Hi and Lois revised, March 20, 2025. Click for a yellower view.]

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A Hi and Lois harbinger

[Hi and Lois, March 19, 2025. Click for a larger view.]

The punchline: “That’s a robin, not a harbinger.”

I had to look at the Oxford English Dictionary. The word is a borrowing from French. Its etymon: herbergere. The most interesting point about harbinger is the way its meaning has changed. A dagger marks an obsolete meaning:

†One who provides lodging; an entertainer, a host; a harbourer n. common herberger, a common lodging-house keeper. Obsolete.

One sent on before to purvey lodgings for an army, a royal train, etc.; a purveyor of lodgings; in plural, an advance company of an army sent to prepare a camping-ground; a pioneer who prepares the way. Historical and archaic. †Knight Harbinger: an officer in the Royal Household (the office was abolished in 1846).

One that goes before and announces the approach of someone; a forerunner. Mostly in transferred and figurative senses, and in literary language.

The first OED citation for the word: c. 1175. The first citation for the Hi Flagston meaning: before 1550.

To my surprise, there is a harbinger of spring, and it doesn’t fly or sing:

A small umbelliferous herb of North America, Erigenia bulbosa, which flowers in March in the Central States. In its tuberous root, twice ternate leaves, and small white flowers, it resembles the Earth-nut of Great Britain.

Thanks, dictionary.

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Hi and Lois: no Blackout

[Hi and Lois, February 28, 2015. Click for a larger view.]

It seems that the Flagston kids haven’t heard about the 24-Hour Economic Blackout. But if they had, I doubt they’d care.

Will this effort make a difference to anything? I doubt it. Even its organizer acknowledges that it won’t. But then, he says, the next one will be longer.

The only money our household will be spending today will be on dinner at our favorite (slow, Thai) restaurant, supporting a local business while being happy eaters.

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Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, November 11, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

“Ug! My back hurts this morning”: I don’t get it. Just yesterday, Hi was capable of complete exclamations: “Unhh!” “Arrgh!” And a complete grawlix. If you’re going to talk like a caveman this morning, Hi, you'll need to do better than this. Maybe: “Ug. Bak.”

Seeing ug for ugh reminds me of seeing pros for prose in student writing. What a difference one letter makes. Ugh.

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Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, November 1, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

Lois is serving up baloney this morning: “If you give your candy to the tooth fairy,” she begins.

The small size of comic strips sometimes creates problems with legibility. Ditto’s pirate eyepatch would be easier to recognize as an eyepatch if it were covering his eye. I thought at first that it was blob of digital ink. And yes, that’s a mustache above his mouth.

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[This screenshot is a bit larger than the panel as it appears online.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by the puzzle’s editor, Stan Newman. I started with 13-D, four letters, “Typewriters with typeballs,” a giveaway, which gave away 9-A, five letters, “De Niro’s Raging Bull brother” and 16-A, five letters, “Crest collaborator.” Whee. But I found the bottom half of the puzzle considerably more difficult.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, nine letters, “Major merger partner of 2015.” I dislike this kind of trivia.

4-D, six letters, “Belly up.” Thanks, poetry.

8-D, eight letters, “Unable to sail, say.” Adding an element of mystery to the puzzle.

9-D, eleven letters, “What Kramer saves catalogs from.” I like this kind of trivia.

11-D, five letters, “Overnight delivery specialist.” Note: specialist.

23-A, fourteen letters, “The nation’s largest power station.” Surprising to see it in a puzzle.

35-D, five letters, “Inspiration to many mathematicians.” In the online image of the print puzzle, the third column of text ends with the word many. Reading no further, I struggled for a ridiculously long time to figure out an answer.

29-A, four letters, “Ocean liner.” I was not fooled.

31-A, letters, “Number lines.” I was baffled.

33-D, nine letters, “Togetherness?” Nice.

38-D, eight letters, “Sheryl Crow and Paul McCartney.” I thought the answer might be a sign of the zodiac.

41-D, seven letters, “Windows users.” I get the joke, but are they truly users?

44-D, six letters, “Name associated with 11-Down’s time.” Some pretty rarefied trivia.

46-D, six letters, “Clash-prevention expression.” A little too Hi and Lois-y for me.

47-A, fourteen letters, “Fed people.” The answer has an odd ring to it.

48-D, five letters, “Down clue answer, often.” Nicely Stumper-y.

59-A, five letters, “Operatic Charlestonian.”A great clue.

My favorite in this puzzle: 54-A, four letters, “Gym ball.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

No small step

I think that Hi-Lo was taunting the reader. Trixie was “almost ready” to take a first step yesterday — those words appeared in her thought balloon. But no step today: Hi is at work.

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[The F on the boss’s chair is for Foofram, as in Foofram Industries.]

Trixie walks?

I’m not sure if Hi-Lo is toying with us. It could be that Trixie is just standing up.

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Shovel-ready (Hi and Lois watch)

[Hi and Lois, January 19, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

People of the future should know that in the early twenty-first century, it was common to carry one’s snow shovel through one’s living room. From the kitchen or dining room through the living room to the front door, that’s how we rolled.

But seriously: this panel suffers from redundancy. Chip has said he will shovel “later” — whenever that might be. Hi is headed outside, dressed in his winter togs. He need not carry a shovel for the situation to be clear.

In the second (final) panel of today’s strip, Hi is lying down on the blue sofa, which appears to have been moved, with a heating pad on his back. He whimpers: “AAAEEUGH.” (Notice: no exclamation point, and not even a speech balloon.) And Chip asks Lois, “How is this my fault?”

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[In Peanuts, it’s “AAUGH!”]

Intertextuality

[Hi and Lois, January 11, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

[Zippy, January 11, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

Intertextuality in today’s comics.

How did Lois know to use that enormous pot to make cocoa? She got hold of the script.

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Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by “Lester Ruff” (Stan Newman) is supposed to be on the easy side, but it took me half an hour’s worth of effort. I’d say “May B. Ruff” might be a better name for today’s Stumper. Or “S. Purdy Ruff”? The clue that opened up much of the puzzle for me: 69-A, eight letters, “He said ‘Appreciation is a holy thing.’” Thank you, sir, and not for the first time.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, six letters, “Check writing.” Always. But sometimes more than one check is needed.

8-D, fifteen letters, “Social media ancestor.” Eh, I’m not sure about this. Social media is for everyone.

11-D, six letters, “iPod ancestor.” A little strained.

12-D, eight letters, “Putting holes in, perhaps.” Getting this right made finishing the puzzle possible for me.

17-A, eight letters, “Imagined opponent of a drawn dog.” I smiled.

22-A, five letters, “Après-ski amenity.” I went for the obvious, and the obvious appeared right for a while.

27-A, five letters, “Training area.” Stumper-y.

29-D, four letters, “Level.” EVEN? FAIR? RAZE? TELL? So much indirection. I like it.

37-A, fifteen letters, “Not quite ‘Correct.’” And pretty bland. Somehow I immediately imagined someone in Hi and Lois saying it.

39-D, eight letters, “Lamb or kid.” I did not know the word.

43-A, five letters, “Be orally awesome, these days.” I dunno about this definition.

60-D, four letters, “Novelist Sinatra brawled with.” Yes, to brawl does not require that one resort to fisticuffs.

64-A, eight letters, “Verb related to ‘island.’” MAROONED?

My favorite in this puzzle: 51-D, six letters, “Homeric wise guy.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, July 29, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

Golf. Golf. Golf. Rake. Rake. Rake. The punchline in today’s strip: “You can’t play golf with a rake!” I somehow begin to suspect that I am not the Hi and Lois target audience.

But that doesn’t explain why there isn’t a single leaf on the ground. Might today’s strip have kept until, say, October?

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Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, July 8, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

At a glance you can see that something’s wrong in today’s Hi and Lois. Or that some things are wrong:

~ A tiny bit of the door is missing at the bottom.

~ The wall that holds the doorframe is at a 10° angle. (I used an online protractor to check.)

~ The door cannot close on its (imaginary?) sill. More floor is needed for that to be possible.

Feel free to draw on your screen to check these claims.

Construction is often haphazard in the Hi and Lois world — this panel is still my favorite example — but today’s strip represents a radical departure from the norms of design.

And to think that the strip was once created with a floor plan for the Flagstons’ house.

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[A bonus in today’s strip: the boat in its first panel has the name BIG 2♡ED on its side.]

Medieval Nancy

[Hagar the Horrible, May, 5, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

Geo-B spotted Nancy in today’s Hagar. Thanks, George.

There’s a happy tradition of one comic strip referencing another, as in this Hi and Lois traffic jam, or many others, as in this Hi and Lois crowd scene. But neither George nor I know what a medieval Nancy might signify. Do the words “my husband” portend an appearance by a medieval Sluggo?

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