Barely Not at all legal
Hagar the Horrible, 8/25/05
If I’ve ever complained about the lack of historical accuracy in Hagar the Horrible, I take it all back. In comic strips that take place in pre-modern times, there’s certain aspects of the setting that make for fun jokes (like funny clothes and technical backwardness) and certain aspects that do not (like pressuring your underage children into marriage).
Tune in next week when Honi dies in childbirth at the age of 19. Oh, the hilarity!
All this Viking daughter-pimping hasn’t distracted me from today’s special guest appearance in Rex Morgan, M.D., though:
Secret talks with oil barons? Fixed intelligence on Iraq? Tender, delicious puppies, cooked just the way he likes them? That’s right, baby: Dick Cheney always gets what he wants.
Ron
August 25th, 2005 at 1:42 am
You sure that’s not Jason Alexander with nose putty and a deliberately bad toupee? Or maybe Wally Shawn…?
comicandy
August 25th, 2005 at 4:16 am
Or that guy from Mary Worth … the one with the bad combover … I have no idea why I’m drawing a blank on his name …
JB
August 25th, 2005 at 5:18 am
“…pressuring your underage children into marriage”
I don’t understand this comment, Josh. The girl is almost 18 and the legal age for marriage in many countries is less than this. It’s certainly historically accurate as girls would be married off by 13 or 14 in the past.
Chris
August 25th, 2005 at 6:29 am
You know, that’s all fine and dandy, but it’s really all about “Day 11: Liz Still Hasn’t Gone To The Police Yet”
anon
August 25th, 2005 at 7:07 am
When you life expectancy tops out at about 35, by age 17 it’s half over. So get crackin, Viking Girl.
yellojkt
August 25th, 2005 at 7:12 am
I’m very confused. Honi is boderline jailbait by contemporary mores, if not laws, but a spinster by Viking standards. Where does that leave her as CILF material?
And if she’s fair game, could I talk her into leaving the brass breastplate on?
T Campbell
August 25th, 2005 at 7:26 am
I’m with the crowd on this one– I actually thought HAGAR was fairly funny and not at all disturbing. For one thing, the joke would be pretty much the same if you set it in modern times and added ten years: for another, if teenagers can have SEX in our popular entertainment without our batting an eyelash, what’s so skeezy about matrimony?
Sam
August 25th, 2005 at 7:59 am
Excellent expressions on Bucky in today’s Get Fuzzy! I did the exact same “cover the eyes and scrunch up the face” move, that Bucky does in the last panel, during an interminable staff meeting on Tuesday. And I’m not even a cat person.
Lee
August 25th, 2005 at 8:04 am
Funny, I thought that was the Penguin in RMMD. But I probably just have Rogues Gallery on the brain…
Today on As the Stomach Turns…
A3G: I’d like to start a poll on what unimaginable horrors and torments you think Luann of the Fill-in-the-Blank Stare will face in that apartment. Since the most likely thing she’ll find is an ugly paint scheme, we’ll probably have to create our own drama here.
FBOFW: I had debated for a while on whether that was an actual punchline. It’s pretty clear that it cracked Lynn up. But I finally decided that it wasn’t, especially since today’s strip was pretty badly drawn. Note to Lynn – when you devote a strip to characters talking about their feelings, it helps when we can SEE THEIR FACES.
FW: Nothing on today’s strip, since it’s too boring. But I did find it odd that Wally, after making a point to vent his righteous indignation (and therefore Batiuk’s) on Kahn and his magic color-changing headwear, would have no problem taking a ride from him in Monday’s strip; in fact, I suspect that the whole thing will never be addressed again. One wonders how engaged Batiuk really is in this storyline.
MW: I’m definitely missing something here.
Dennis Jimenez
August 25th, 2005 at 8:06 am
HH – I suspect the problem with Helga’s sign campaign may be that the reverse reads, “I’m how she’ll look when she’s 36.”
Karl the Idiot
August 25th, 2005 at 9:19 am
It’s certainly historically accurate as girls would be married off by 13 or 14 in the past.
Depends, as on all things, on when and where. In, say, 15th-century England, to the best of my knowledge, there seems to have been, roughly, an inverse relationship between wealth and the age of marriage: the richer you were, the younger you got married. People in the trades often wouldn’t get married until their late 20s.
But I don’t know much about the Vikings. As if that matters for this comic strip! This isn’t Prince Valiant here.
yellojkt
August 25th, 2005 at 9:43 am
FBOFW wins the award for most exposition crammed into one comic strip since, well, last Thursday’s FBOFW.
We learned in four panels that April plays the guitar and has a twenty year old cousin named Laura. And the plot didn’t advance a bit.
Of course in PattersonWorld, a self-deprecating comment really means you are destined to become a world famous folk singer like Anne Murray and show that Becky up for the talentless hack she is.
Cottontail
August 25th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Bearing in mind that I’m in the “don’t know much about Vikings” camp, wouldn’t it have been the parent’s job to arrange a marriage? If so, then it’s Mom and Dad Viking there that are at fault. Ah, the hilarity of anachronistic comic strips.
Dingo
August 25th, 2005 at 10:15 am
I’m also afraid that Lynn is setting us up to witness April becoming a Canadian folk sensation before she retires the strip. But, like the movie Georgia, maybe she and Becky will reunite on stage for a duet of “Roadside, my love.”
Action Guy
August 25th, 2005 at 10:17 am
To all those curious about FBOFW, I checked with the RCMP, and Liz did try to press charges against Howard, but it turns out that since there was no penetration, and he didn’t actually physically grope her naughty parts, it would just be a very minor misdemeanor, and she would have better luck with a civil suit for sexual harrassment. Anthony, on the other hand, has propositioned Liz with an adulterous affair, and could be convicted of a class E felony, and get 5-10 in a medium security prison, where ear twisting wouldn’t save his anal virginity! So it would be stupid, and hypocritical of Liz to file charges against Howard (100 hours of community service) and not against Anthony (10 years imprisonment, ass-raped, and never-to-see his daughter again).
BTW – I watch too much Law & Order and CSI – Mountie Patrol!
yellojkt
August 25th, 2005 at 10:53 am
April and Becky could also sing I Got You, Foob.
With Becky as Cher, of course.
gnome de blog
August 25th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Re #6:
I wonder if those breastplates come in electric blue?
anon
August 25th, 2005 at 11:00 am
Back in days of old, the wealthy were married early BECAUSE they were wealthy. The marriages were arranged by parents to protect the money and keep it in the proper strata of society. After all, you couldn’t have your rich young son age 21 run off with the blacksmith’s daughter, but you could “marry” or at least “betroth” same son at a younger age to your neighbor’s daughter. Provided your neighbor had adjoining property or was your business partner. Love had nothing to do with marriage. The poor were free to get by as best they could, maybe they married later after saving up a nest egg to support their inevitable offspring.
rich
August 25th, 2005 at 11:19 am
Good analysis, yellojkt – April’s clearly going places, way bigger than Becky and her lame-ass 4-Evah woulda evah been! We have a rare privilege, to witness the flowering of the next Clapton, or Andres Segovia, or something. “Not that good”? “NOT THAT GOOD”? April, people have been coming over just to hear you! (Even though, like I said, we just had the guitar restrung, and you’ve only been playing for a few minutes.) Why, crowds have already started gathering outside our windows to hear you noodling! Hundreds of womyn have trooped up from Michigan, tossed their Anne Murray records and declared you, April, YOU, their new Canadian she-ro!
Adam-12
August 25th, 2005 at 11:34 am
Of course in PattersonWorld, a self-deprecating comment really means you are destined to become a world famous folk singer like Anne Murray and show that Becky up for the talentless hack she is.
But ultimately Becky will become the more rich and famous performer. After she moves to Los Angeles and goes roadside with all the right producers, her career will skyrocket. MTV, then a reality show, then a lousy part in an even worse movie. April may become a Foobian folk star, but God Bless America and our desire to make a star out of a talentless piece of T&A eye-candy!
[Of course, then we wait desperately for the star to burn out and fall to the floor as dramatically as possible--preferably on live TV, but a VH1 special is okay too!]
Cottontail
August 25th, 2005 at 11:41 am
yellojkt:
“April and Becky could also sing I Got You, Foob.
With Becky as Cher, of course.”
She’ll have to head over to Mary Worth to borrow Toby’s headband.
Chris
August 25th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
On Thursday’s Family Circus, is Jeffy trying to use psychic powers on his (I’ll say it right) spaghetti?
tommy
August 25th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
hagar the horrible. horrible. fucking horrible. always horrible. the sf chronicle ditched it half a year ago, except for sundays. which begs the question… if it’s not good enough for the weekly, why put it in on sunday? b.t.w. the chron has a HYSTERICAL comic on wed. and fri. called Bad Reporter by don asmusen. he skewers news and reporting of the news in full color and with actual WIT. a rare thing in comics these days.
i had to explain to my father in law this weekend about why i read shitty comics. he caught me reading family circus and almost disowned me. i told him about this blog and he looked at me likehe understood, but was still suspicious.
tommy
August 25th, 2005 at 12:24 pm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/comics/6Chix.dtl
it takes SIX PEOPLE tom come up with this trash.
Sheila
August 25th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Not to change the subject or anything, but I’m out of town so I’m reading comics on-line, which means I’m reading some that I don’t get at home, and — have you EVER seen ANYTHING as effing LAME as today’s Six Chix?
That “joke” has been around for generations. Till it has whiskers on it. Till it’s not even a joke anymore. And this cartoonist actually took the trouble to draw it and letter it? Hello? Creativity, anyone? Originality? HUMOR???
Harrumph. My TIME has been WASTED.
Sheila
August 25th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Doh! Tommy, we crossed in the mail. (If only my boss hadn’t distracted me in mid-comment, I’d've gotten in first :-)
Shaenon
August 25th, 2005 at 12:37 pm
It’s kind of beautiful, how you can see the entire thought process that went into that Hagar strip: the burning desire to do a hilarious “mom nagging 29-year-old spinster” gag (after all, they’re just lying around unused now that Cathy’s hitched), the realization that it wouldn’t work in a society where most people were dead by 30, the grim determination to plunge ahead anyway, even if it rendered the final strip bizarre and disturbing.
Fun fact: Dik Browne’s daughter, the model for Honi, is married to “Bizarro” cartoonist Dan Piraro.
Lee
August 25th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
[Of course, then we wait desperately for the star to burn out and fall to the floor as dramatically as possible–preferably on live TV, but a VH1 special is okay too!]
While April finds True Happiness (and Love) in her modest success, all of which will be detailed in one panel of the “Where Are They Now?” strip that will wrap up all of Lynn’s storylines.
Matter of fact, that’s probably when Liz will FINALLY go the police. So it’s going to be a long, long wait…
Action Guy
August 25th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Check this out. It is actually pretty good, and acurate as well. http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/farley/
Psychic Psam
August 25th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
After consulting today’s FBoFW, and my crystal ball (Actually imitation crystal, b/c I’m new at this and can’ afford a real crystal ball until some revenue starts coming in, which I predict will be in about 1-99 years, can’t pin it down any closer than that, b/c of the distorting properties of imitation crystal on psycic radio waves. Anyway, as I was saying…) I have foreseen that April will become the winner of the first Canadian Idol, but after reigning as champ for 3 weeks (decades?) will have to give her crown up in disgrace when it is revealed that she was having a lesbian affair with judge kd Lang. She will run off in disgrace to whatever shithole outpost her man-ruining sister, and unapologetic home-wrecker, Liz happens to be teaching at, while hiding out from Theresa, who is out to kill her after finding out about Anthony’s professed love for her. While hiding out, April will sneak off with a local boy, desperate to prove that she really isn’t a lesbo, and the sealskin kayak they are making sweet love in will drift out to sea, where a pod of killer whales, enraged by the young lovers’ squeals of pleasure, attack the kayak and eat the occupants. Liz, distraught over her missing sister, will turn to Anthony for solace, only to be gunned down by Theresa, who then shoots Anthony and herself. Mike begins drinking and loses his wife and kids in a messy divorce, while dad tries to fight off a dental malpractice suit. He finally manages to win, but only after spending the entire family’s life savings on legal fees, so mom has to become a cheap prostitute in order to feed them all. THE END
Oh wait, there was a smudge on my (imitation) crystal ball, ignore the above, everyone in the P family lives happily ever after. SHIT! Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Josh
August 25th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
Josh here … I don’t usually comment in the comments, but I just wanted to say that Shaenon (#27) pretty much said what I wanted to say in my post, but much better. Maybe if I’d posted earlier than 2 am, I’d have been a bit funnier and/or more coherent.
Also, since two people have mentioned them in this thread, I thought I’d add my endorsement to Farley and Don Asmussen, both of whose work appears exclusively (I think) in the San Francisco Chronicle, which was my paper of choice back when I was a Bay Arean. Farley is I think unique in that it is a standard 3- to 4-panel strip that runs in just one paper and thus is filled with local Bay Area in-jokes. And Asmussen is just flat-out hilarious. His earlier strip, which ran on Sundays and was just called “San Francisco Comic Strip”, I think, used bring me dangerously close to peeing my pants on a regular basis.
jf
Cottontail
August 25th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Speaking of Cathy (comment #27), it looks like the newlyweds are having their first fight. Over clothes shopping, no less. It’s nice to see Irving has some cajones. Who’d'a thunk it?
Why, oh why, do I torture myself by reading Cathy, anyway?
Action Guy
August 25th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
I don’t know why anyone reads Cathy! I’m not even sure why anyone ever decided to run it in newspapers. Must be some kind of NCAA Title IX thing. I’m against domestic violence, but I pray that her new husband decides to shoot her one day soon! No jury would ever convict him! (I’m talking about Cathy, not the artist!)
Action Guy
August 25th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
RE:#30
Instead of “making sweet love”, wouldn’t April and Nanuk be “getting roadside”? Although, technically, I guess it should be “seaside”, which really sounds a lot nicer than “roadside”. “Roadside” just sounds like dirty, beligerant sex!
Sheila
August 25th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Cathy and Irving got married because they’re totally incompatible and they’re driven crazy by each other’s neuroses. What a great foundation for matrimony!
I can’t wait till they have children.
rich
August 25th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
To me “roadside” conveys rolling intimately in an oily ditch by the side of the highway, amidst bugs, debris, and roadkill…sure, it’s no Motel 6, but you do what you gotta do in a small town.
Psam (#30) – darn, I was really looking forward to seeing Ellie Patterson “whored up” and working the streets! I think she would have made about as convincing (and desirable) a hooker as Sally Jesse Rafael did, that one time she went “undercover” as a working girl.
Marc
August 25th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Number 2, his name is WIlbur. Yeah, i had to look that up! lol.
I thought it looked it like Dick a little bit…
yellojkt
August 25th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Psychic Psam (#30),
You stole my guess. You must have known exactly what I was thinking.
tommy(#24),
Six Chix is actually written by six different chix, one for each of six different days. I don’t think they collaborate. That way the syndicate can feel all affirmative action about themselves and starve six different artists all at once.
These women better all have day jobs, because as Ces says “Becoming a Cartoonist to Get Rich Is Like Becoming an Actuary to Get {redacted}.” That would go sextuple when you have to split the check that many ways.
yellojkt
August 25th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Sheila (#35),
In thirty years, Cathy and Irving come back in time as The Lockhorns.
Ketil Flatnose
August 25th, 2005 at 2:23 pm
No good Norse family would want to be shouldered with taking care of Hagar’s family, which they probably would. Hagar is blissfully incompetant in taking castles it seems, and he would drink up the year’s mead supply in a week just at the wedding party alone. All he would probably do is piss off his inlaws to the point where they would burn him and helga alive in their house a la Njal’s saga.
Hagar the Horrible? Horrible at seizing castles and looting monasteries. Would you want this guy for an inlaw?
Master of the Obvious
August 25th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
Aren’t Honi’s boobs spaced waaaaay too far apart? You could drive a truck through there.
JohnnyC
August 25th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
My magic 8 ball says April will change her name to Avril.
Frank Drackman
August 25th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
eww, that guy in RMMD reminds me of the creepy Nazi guy from Raiders of the lost ark.
Tommyp
August 25th, 2005 at 3:25 pm
Our paper (minneapolis) dumped Cathy a few weeks ago. Thank God!!! For one thing, it wasn’t funny anymore. Also, it’s so damn wordy I rarely had the patience to get through it. HELLO?!?! I’ve gotta get to work now Guisewite…
J.Po
August 25th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Re: #17…
I wonder if those breastplates come in electric blue?
Students of The History Of The College of Cardinals will recall that Honi’s metal bustier, in electric blue, was the model for the royal vestment of choice for Queen Islamorada Girl of the Papal Insurrection.
All this, and I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast.
CoolJerk
August 25th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
Hey, Josh –
My buddy “Donny Cha-Cha” Asmussen’s strip “Bad Reporter” is now syndicated. I understand three syndicates were duking it out over him. Well-deserved.
Sir H C
August 25th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
First:
http://www.ageofconsent.com/
Will tell you how old to go roadside around the world.
But what of Honi’s eyes? Look like some weird Groucho Marx glasses. Truly disturbing.
krooz
August 25th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Hagar is not only stupid and unfunny as always, but the ‘gag’ relies on the hoary old cliche impossibility of the characters not noticing something two feet away.
gnome de blog
August 25th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Re #45
Thanks, Po. I think in joined the party mid-insurrection (although I have read the full 666-comment thread). It’s good to be reminded of these important historical points.
J.Po
August 25th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
You’re welcome, Cardinal Gnome. We cherish our rich Comix history…almost as much as we cherish Queen Isla in her electric blue metal bustier!
Mibbitmaker
August 25th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
#40: “… they would burn him and helga alive in their house a la Njal’s saga.”
Or better still, they’d do as in “Njorl’s Saga” and introduce them unendingly until the whole thing becomes an ad for investing in the English city of Malden. It sure would make Hagar funny for a change!
And now for something completely different…
Chris
August 25th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
I did think there were a couple of creative ones today. I laughed at “The Buckets” and “Adam@Home”
Bob
August 25th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
First post for me. I checked the SF link (#29) and found the “more comics” carried “Mutts”. Does anybody else find the cat’s diction in that strip slightly derivative of Krazy Kat?
no tea
August 25th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Blondi 8/25: So will I Dagwood…. so will I.
Ron
August 26th, 2005 at 1:10 am
53: Yesh, yesh I do. But what you call derivative, we call homage!
As for Honi, I keep thinking of that Holy Grail scene where the father urges his son to marry the bride he’s picked out. She’s got huge…. tracts of land!
tommy
August 26th, 2005 at 2:10 am
yeah sheila. the lockhorns=cathy and irving in 15 years. that would make this nightmare end in a trimphally humilitaing way. in the bay, we only have cathy on sunday (i think? unless it’s daily in the oakland tribune which nobody reads) i wish sunday was the benchmark, except it’s more like the toilet.
i find it REALLY interesting that now i read every comic on the page in spite of the fact that i used to block out the shitty ones (sally forth, doonsebury, any soap, blondie, beetle (what fucking year is it and how can a pentegon-funded strip avoid the subject of war altogether? oh wait…)… and it’s all because of the curmudgeon. it makes what i used to do in private be a daily diligence.
and this cross referenced Blondie shit is TIRED. hipper comics did it waaayyyy better in subtler manners yonks ago.
Chris
August 26th, 2005 at 6:25 am
“I just saved hundreds of dollars on my car insurance by switching to Geico.”
“So what’s the bad news?”
“Liz hasn’t gone to the police yet.”
Thank you! I’ll be here all week! Try the veal!
Dave
August 26th, 2005 at 6:48 am
FW: Wally just became a daddy. You heard it here first.
Jeanne
August 26th, 2005 at 7:39 am
Did anyone else notice the weird crossover about an 85 year old nose in BC and the comment about the guy being 85 because his nose is big in Wizard of ID. WTF??????
rich
August 26th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Jeanne – Brant Parker, cartoonist of Wizard of Id, was born on 8-26-1920. Guess that’s him with the big nose. (And he still draws this thing??)
PizzaBagel
August 26th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
What gets me is that Parker is somehow still in the good graces of Johnny Hart, who supposedly believes that his own mama is gonna rot for all eternity in H-E-double-hockey-sticks. And Parker doesn’t even prosyletize in his strip. What gives?
The Gumball
August 26th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
I actually look forward to the Bumstead party, simply because I picture the brawl after guest Dilbert points out to Hagar that real Vikings never wore horns on their helmets.
Jeanne
August 26th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Thanks for the reply, Rich. It answers a couple questions.
Bob
August 26th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
Reply to # 55 by Ron – that’s what happens when you don’t take the time to learn the etiquette; another faux pas. Momma always warned me about that.
L. Nemo
August 27th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Clearly it is wallace shawn.
David
August 28th, 2005 at 11:25 am
For the record, there have already been two completed Canadian Idols – you mean you haven’t heard songs on American radio by Ryan Malcolm or Kalen Porter? You’ve really missed out! Ahem. – with the third currently underway. I’d actually probably watch it if I could see April singing Lynn’s lovely song about graduation.
John Rogers
September 1st, 2005 at 7:02 am
God, you idiot, this is supposed to take place over a thousand years ago. People did this sort of thing. It’s not pimping, moron, it’s called an unfunny joke about arranged marriage (of course it’s unfunny, it’s Hagar the Horrible). If it was pimping, she’d be selling her daughter to many different men for the sole purpose of sex, not marriage. What the fuck do you think a dowry was? You God damn idiot!
Bill Cameron
September 5th, 2005 at 3:00 am
Gotta love Hedley, Royal’s loyal leg-breaker. Not only does this guy come cheap; the Buck beating only cost $500, he’s ready to tune up the ‘Perfesser’ for free! He even carries his fungo bat in a shoulder holster under his coat! You gotta love a man who enjoys his work.
Why is he still working for Royal anyway? Does he like getting zapped with that Taser or something?
I hope the writers decide to give poor Rex a break. Ever since the wedding, June has been running him ragged; dangerous raft trips, blizzards in the big city, industrial espionage, wacky nannies, child abusing refugess from ‘Gasoline Alley’, and that utterly frightening space alien ‘daughter’ Sarah make up just the short list. You’d think after dating her for fifty years Rex would have known how much trouble the dame is.
Give Rex well deserved some time off and give us a strange interlude with Berna and her portly lover, Chef Tito Schwartz! Any man who hides pizza boxes on the fire escape while trying to cheat on a diet bet with his girlfriend can’t be all bad.
Honest-Id
November 26th, 2005 at 8:02 pm
Re #6:
CILF? Conseil International de La Langue Française?
Ohhhhhhhh…. I see.
Anonymous
February 11th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
When Honi poses to the side, her boobs stick out like a sore thumb, but when facing forward, she appears to be flatchested. Which is it?
Chappy
February 13th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Chris Browne has certainly picked up his fathers sense of humor and kept Hagar on the go!
Mr. D.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:16 am
As for Luann, she got a new hairstyle a few years ago. Even though I like it okay, I think I prefer the old style. And for Brad, he is a fireman now. That is cool!
Anonymous
April 16th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Brad, what a grump!
Anonymous
April 16th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I have been a super fan of PEANUTS for over 30 years. To me, the funniest gag I ever saw in a PEANUTS comic strip, involved Shermy around 1952 or so. In the first square, we find Shermy walking with a happy grin on his face. The second square, he turns on a television set with that grin still there. Third square, he sits on the floor waiting for the set, twice as big as he is, to warm up. Fourth and final square, these words appear on the set, WHY ARENT YOU IN SCHOOL? Scarey, but funny!!