October 24th, 2015

Uncle Beetle

by Brian Walker, Greg Walker and Chance Browne

Hi and Lois Sunday page, black-and-white proof, October 30, 1983.

Most readers of the strip are probably unaware that Lois is Beetle Bailey’s sister. The relationship was established in April 1954 when Beetle was contemplating leaving the Army and visited the Flagstons. We plan on running this entire sequence from Beetle Bailey in an upcoming post at both of our web sites. References to this family connection occasionally pop up, as in the Sunday page above.

King Features stopped sending us color proofs of our Sunday pages in the mid-1970s, so this black-and-white reproduction is the only record we have of what must have been a colorful Sunday page. Dik’s clean-line, pen-and-ink technique is still nice to look at.

The foliage in New England has just about reached at its peak, so stay tooned for more autumnal Hi and Lois pages from our archives.

– Brian Walker