One-panel quickies
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Hagar the Horrible, 2/5/25
Hagar is of course no friend of kings, so obviously this strip, where he appears to be halpertfacing to the reader while hanging out with his friend the king while the king waxes philosophical, is a bit confusing. A more likely interpretation of what we’re seeing: for once Hagar has decided to abandon his usual strategy of frontal assault on a targeted stronghold for stealth, the king thinks he’s alone and is just soliloquizing to nobody in particular, and Hagar is halpertfacing to the reader just before slitting the king’s throat and stealing his gold.
Dennis the Menace, 2/5/25
I can’t believe everyone is smiling at this terrible quip from Dennis. You should not be smiling about this! You should be very upset!
Pluggers, 2/5/25
Plugger torch passed from Boomers to Gen X: CONFIRMED
52 replies to “One-panel quickies”
DtM:
“…and, come to think of it, I’m kind of a La-Z-Boy myself!”
DtM:
I had lots of friends over to my house when I was a kid. I don’t ever recall displaying my parents in a reclining position to them.
MW:
“I’m blanking!…what am I supposed to do with this ball again???”
Hagar: I don’t really understand royalty in fiction (and I guess in turn, real life)
Shouldn’t The King have bodyguards with him at all times?
Then there are weird depictions of royalty like this weird (by which I mean terrifying) British cartoon called “Little Princess” where the Queen is sometimes shown doing mundane things like doing laundry (you should have servants for that!)
It would seem that Pluggers has surrendered to my contention that Pluggers are hipsters. But I’m from Pittsburgh, and there are no hipsters in New Kensington. I’m torn.
Pluggers can grow fur on top of other fur?
This is the Spongebob “Water Under the Water” paradox all over again.
RMMD: And if this guy seems to good to be true it’s because . . . you know.
MW: As June has illustrated, Dawn hasn’t quite mastered the rare double-English backspin yet.
JP: Well would you look at that? Just as they were about to pack it in for the day/night(?), Gloria discovers the long-lost drone. Boy, what are the odds?
Pluggers: Well, either that or you’re just literally a goat.
Hagar’s sly look at the reader may be out of character, but at least the joke itself depends on the long-established traits of the strip’s beloved King Beeblebrox.
GT: I’m no expert, but if you don’t want to be misgendered, maybe you shouldn’t play on the girls’ basketball team and the girls’ wrestling team. Just a thought.
DtM: Dennis explains to his buddy how his daily cushion-change haul has increased dramatically since his dad got the recliner.
@Cleveland Mocks:
MW. How do you get a bowling ball to follow an S-shaped curve down the lane?
JP. Of course!
BG&SS confirms that Jughaid is left-handed. How soon before th’ judge tries him as a witch?
Can’t wait until you hit plugger status, Josh. You’ll be screaming insanely out of your mind like Democratic congressmen regarding DOGE.
Pluggers… thats not a chin, thats a mouth.
Thats not a goatee its a mustache.
DtM: Mom is smiling because nothing is being destroyed for the moment, and she’s glad Dad enjoyed the “special” brownies that she made.
RMMD: Where was this Renaissance woman a few weeks ago?
@Cleveland Mocks: They probably don’t have much choice, unless “give up sports” is supposed to help with their psychological health.
Hagar is plundering in this one. He stole a joke meant for The Wizard of Id.
GT: Ahem, Keri. You got knocked up by your last boyfriend, remember? You’re a girl.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Keri’s nonbinary.
Dennis the Menace: In all seriousness, this looks like the DtM team literally copied an image from a 1950’s/60’s furniture ad and just changed the faces. Even the punchline sounds like it came from the same ad.
HTH: That look communicates, “We both know this guy deserves to die, right? There’s no moral qualms here? Okay. Good. Just checking.”
DTM: What kind of kid accepts an invitation to the Mitchell house? “Wanna watch my dad loaf?” “Do I!”
Pluggers: Pluggers may have said some stuff to a female coworker once. But it was years ago! And nobody got hurt! Water under the bridge.
DtM: Dennis’ writing partner sees everyone smiling at his newest line and thinks; “Yeah, that’s a keeper.”
MW: How many weeks are we going to spend with Jared and Jess inviting Dawn and Dick to play a new sport and him being overly invested and aggressive at it? I feel like this should be secondary to the issue of the abuse, but I genuinely don’t know if Moy realizes that.
Dennis the Menace: “You might call Dad’s recliner an accent piece — accent grave, that is!” [Uproarious laughter from all, except Henry, who is dead]
@Hurting Joshs and his wittle wifes feelings: Sigh. Get help, dude. If not for your own sake, for your family’s.
Pluggers: Pluggers in the Mirror Universe. The women wear flannel two-piece minis.
MW: You have to hand it to Dawn to have a ball make an “S” Curve before heading into the gutter.
Pluggers: Why does he look startled by his own goatee? Does he have no memory of growing it? Did he just realize it is not, in fact, concealing his double chin?
DT: Knowing that Sam will have the final punch against the Nazi, I still want to know why the switch didn’t go off in the struggle, even having Liz take it.
Pluggers are twenty years out of date, as usual. Standard-issue Gen X hairstyle for men is a shaved (balding) head and a full beard. Ask me how I know (don’t ask me how I know)!
@14: Uncle Lumpy! Cleanup!
DtM: Dennis takes his friend to the next stop on his vaudeville tour.
“Mr Wilson and his hammock are real swingers. zing! “
Hagär the Horrible: I’d be pondering this cosmos too, given its nearby gas giant with a full set of rings and enormous stars capable of overwhelming the light of a full moon. Or is that a distant sun? You may be murdered by the Space Viking yet, King, but don’t sleep on the methane rain and background radiation. Hope your planet has its own magnetic field!
@Little Guy: You say “Cleanup,” I say “Shotgun applied to comment”…
so I guess that’s King Friday XIII there? Hagar is straight-up sacking the Neighborhood of Make Believe? Is ita mostly-Pittsburgh Wednesday here?
Perhaps Hagar is this King’s retainer, in service to him as a mercenary. Don’t do it, Hagar! Your rugged independent spirit must never be abused by corporate patrons! Your pride is not worth his filthy gold, for Odin’s sake!
Dennis – “They were in The ‘Nam together. He’s always telling that story about the time his recliner fragged the sergeant.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“It’s Juan S. Perfil, the actor!”
“Gulp! The fans!”
“You’re very popular with the young women!”
“A little… but not them”
“Those are the fans of my clothing designer!”
Pluggers don’t believe in that “science” hoo-ha as look directly at their own chin without needing any sort of reflective surface.
MW-And this is where Dawn demonstrates how she learned to take a punch from Mary.
@Cleveland Mocks: I had to read back a few days for context. Should they be joining the school’s non-binary team?
Dennis is telling Dad jokes today and using conservative talking points yesterday, he’s turning into a boomer, the most truly menacing form.
Yesterday Dirk the “great” bowler just heaved his 16-pound ball (yes, that is a double entendre) down the middle of the lane. All great bowlers through their 16-pounders with some kind of curve. Ergo, ipso whatso, Dirk is not a great bowler. From Dawn today to Dirk yesterday, it’s apparent that June has no idea how bowling works. Oh well, hardly the worst thing about this story line.
CS: “The horrors of the battle of the bands”? Screw you, Dinkle. You dragged those poor children through the mud every year, and you loved every second of it. The Colonal Khadafy outfit, the power to degrade underage children and make them build musical tributes to your own ego. Admit it: you were aroused, weren’t you?
MW: What @Lauralot said.
Pluggers: NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
I grant that I have some things in common with Pluggers. I’m a middle aged man. I’m getting set in my ways. I even have a goatee for the purposes of concealing my own obesity. But I am NOT a Plugger, and I REFUSE to ever become a Plugger. My loved ones have instructions: “if you ever see me playing hair metal on a cassette tape, and pining for the days when both of those things were viable and cost only 9 dollars, KILL ME.”
Pluggers: Wait, how much of a double chin would a goatee even hide? Shouldn’t it be a full beard?
MW, panel 3: “Someone call 911! Dawn just gave Dirk a heart attack!” “Arggghhhhhhh !!!l
I’m just glad that, for all the damage the Internet has done, it has provided us with a handy little neologism to convey “staring in disbelief at the fourth wall like Jim on The Office.”
Pluggers have the worst facial hair.
GT Panel 4:
“And I’m always getting smelled! Your dad! Your possibly dead grandmother, who knows! Strangers! I know I smell so pretty but it’s such a burden!”
“Hi I’m Dr. Morgan! Say, what smells so great in here?”
JP: So they find the drone up in the tree. The drone that has the footage that the police know about for months.
How did the police get the footage? And why didn’t they or the owner of the drone try to recover the drone? Drones don’t grow on trees, y’know.
“Of course, my liege,” Hagar grumbled wearily, ruing the day he listened to Lucky Eddie about the wonders of Byzantium. “We sail south, Hagar, past the Rur into the lands of the Romans! They pay gold for mercenaries,” Eddie had gushed, and the crew fell in with him, so they took the long voyage south, down the Araxes to the Iazartes, through the Maeotis Swamp and into the Euxine Sea, and by the time the great city swam into view through the haze of heat, half the crew was gone and Eddie was dead from the bloody flux. But that city, O Byzantium, was a glory, and they did pay gold and put weapons in their hands and armor on their bodies and called the Varangians and sent them to fight and kill the enemies of the Romans, and with Roman gold and Roman steel they carved bloody swathes through Sicily and Italy, Egypt and Crete, rising in power and glory and now Hagar stood behind Nikephoros III Botaneiates and realized, with a simple push, he could have a crown, Emperor of a foreign land, far from his home and his wife. He took a step forward and looked to the sky for a sign. A comet was falling, heralding the end of Kings.
Hagar the Horrible – Hagar is just rolling his eyes at this egotistical Christian king, feeling like a big deal when he is merely marveling at Midgard, when the Vikings have 9 Realms in their theology. He will take care of this big-headed King (my removing said big head) and have a story to tell one day over a feast in Valhalla.
Dennis The Menace – This terrible pun is the The Recline and Fall of the Dennis Empire
Pluggers – **Picture of Andy Bear, wearing a Kurt Cobain shirt, buying the In Utero album from a used record shop**
“How A Plugger Reaches Nirvana”
HtH – Small and insignificant…this is a dick joke, right….
DtM – This is a J D Vance joke…right….
Pluggers – Hipster plugger…now that doesn’t sound right….
Adios Amigos, DJ.