Timeline – 1968 Part 2

Hi and Lois Sunday page color proof, February 11, 1968.

Ditto Flagston is seven years old and comes up with more ways to get in trouble than Lois can shake her finger at. Nevertheless, he’s a lovable little monster. His naïve innocence gives him a winning charm. He is a kid without any adult pretensions who recaptures a sense of fun most of us lost with our youth.

In the episode above Ditto faces a fear that many of us have – getting a shot in the arm with a hypodermic needle. He escapes from this dilemma by running out of the doctor’s office in a panic. In the surprise ending, he finds himself in the back of another family’s car.

Undoubtedly, this situation has happened in real life but a missing child is no joke. Very few mothers would be as calm as Lois if their son had disappeared.

But somehow it manages to be humorous in a comic strip. Ditto’s startled expression and the reactions of the kids and the mom in the final panel probably made readers laugh a little nervously. They knew that Ditto would eventually be reunited with his family. There are always happy endings in Hi and Lois even if they are not shown.

This is another brilliantly written and drawn Sunday page from the Mort Walker/Dik Browne team. For more in our Timeline series, check back next week.

– Brian Walker