Beetle was first. Hi & Lois came about when Beetle was on furlough. Mort liked the idea of a family strip and asked Hägar creator Dik Browne to help flesh out the new strip.
More Hi & Lois trivia: Trixie was able to speak in baby talk for a while. I think this was during the '60s.
And a clarification: Beetle debuted in 1950, Hi & Lois in '54, and Hägar in '73.
Beetle has some good moments- quite unlike Cathy.
Yeah, I have to admit. That one was funny. I haven’t read BB in years, because…you know, it sucks, but that one was pretty good.
But I’m not gonna hold my breath for a readable Brenda Starr.
That’s funny! I haven’t laughed out loud at a comic strip in ages.
Beetle Baily is one of a long list of “classic” comics that I don’t read any more because they haven’t been good in ages. Garfield, Wizard of Id, B.C., Peanuts Classics (oh God, especially Peanuts. The man’s dead, folks. Time to move on with your lives), Family Circus, and other strips like Cathy that I never read in the first place.
You have definitely been online too long. Step away from the computer and go outside for a few minutes. 
Is Nancy still published? You just don’t see high-quality sight lines in comics anymore.
I think She kicked the bucket at least a decade ago, thank goodness.
Heh, sight lines -------------------------------.
In my days as a young Mort Walker fan, I checked his book out of the library. He obviously intended it for eyes older than mine at the time.
He included, in the book, some sketches of Beetle Bailey strips he longed to do, but that no newspaper would print. One of them still stays with me.
It showed Beetle reading a magazine over about five panels, while somebody in the background is singing. It’s a different song in each panel, and Beetle keeps quietly reading.
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile…
Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail, as the caissons go rolling along…
Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee…
In the last panel, the view is pulled back, and Beetle is shown, drawers down, sitting on the toilet. He turns to the reader and says, “Boy, Sarge sure takes a long time in the shower.”
I think Mort should print this as his last strip and then retire. It could be his Janet Jackson moment. 
Some trivia I just learned from Mort Walker’s site: Beetle Bailey was originally about a college student. After running for a year, he was inducted into the army during the Korean Conflict and has been there ever since. Not even Gomer Pyle remained a private that long (though of course Gomer’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” discharge prematurely ended his service).
Reminds me of a little ditty that goes something like this:
Won’t you go home, Beetle Bailey?
Won’t you go home?
Where comic strips go to diiiiieeeee.
p.s.
Monty has seen a resurgence in hilarity levels lately, too. Must be something in the air.
Nancy has been through a couple of different artists since the Ernie Bushmiller days, but she’s still around. This recent strip doesn’t have any sight lines, but dig all those flying sweat drops.
Haven’t you heard? Cathy got engaged! Now we can hear her whine about how her wedding plans go awry!
Is she describing herself in that first panel?
I find it interesting that Aunt Fritzie and Peter Parker both have an Aunt May… (don’t they?) …
Beetle Bailey seems revitalized since Gizmo brought it to the 21st century.
The computer jokes are not Foxtrot or Dilbert level, but it seems adequate.
The strip you linked to made me chuckle, actually - “Three Rocks Elementary” was a great inside joke.
Guy Gilchrist (the current Nancy cartoonist) is very close to Bushmiller’s gag style, it seems-and he often puts in the three rocks.
If you’ve ever watched re-runs of Night Court, you probably have see that joke before. They did a gag where Art the maintenance man was apparently carrying a cross through the courthouse. It turns out that he was moving a basketball hoop. I don’t know if that’s where it originated, but it struck me as an excellent visual gag at the time.