Harsh judgements
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The Lockhorns, 4/20/26
A fun subtle running bit in The Lockhorns is that Leroy’s coworkers hold him in as much contempt as his wife does, but with a subtle difference in tone: Loretta is furious that she’s shackled to this loser forever, while his coworkers seem to enjoy him as the office clown, the lovable loser whose antics they presumably talk about at length when he’s out of earshot or maybe even when he’s just within it. Look at the big smile on the receptionist’s face as she delivers this zinger! Anyway, this kind of interaction is probably marginally less corrosive to Leroy’s soul than the ones he has with Loretta, so you can see why he puts up with the low pay, and also why they don’t pay him very much.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/20/26
“Oh man,” you probably woke up thinking, “it’s 4/20, the marijuana holiday! Now that recreational cannabis is more or less legal in most of the United States, have any of the syndicated newspaper strips chosen to ‘blaze it’ with a weed-themed joke?” Turns out the answer to your question is “Yes, exactly one, and it’s Mother Goose and Grimm,” which I admit isn’t what I expected.
Hagar the Horrible, 4/20/26
Oops, it looks like Hagar and Eddie and the crew have died at sea. And, frankly, that’s a good thing: we’ve grown affectionate towards them over the years, but they’re fundamentally a gang of thieves and murderers who leave a trail of misery and death in their wake. Rest in piss, fellas!
132 replies to “Harsh judgements”
Hagar:
“But this tempest won’t stop that vessel full of armored knights beyond us from engaging our ship, men!”
“Why is that, Hagar?”
“Because the mail always goes through!”
“There’s no reason at all I should consider these messages! Or taken note of them! But thanks for giving me the chance to do a bit!”
That day, the receptionist became a true member of the family, both work and home. Leroy bought El Toro tequila on the way home that night. It’s really, really cheap.
The Lockhorns:
How nice of Sydney Sweeney to make a cameo appearance in today’s installment!
Pluggers: Pluggers aren’t lazy, they’re just in a diabetic coma.
Luann: You and Toni have a baby? That’s the funny part. Ah-ha-ha-ha!
Thank God they made the cat green, or we NEVER would’ve gotten the joke here! I’m a Mother Goose & Grimm reader, apparently!
Lhrns: Hold on Josh: I think there may be one more 420 joke on today’s newspaper, as this could be a new twist on the classic “Dave’s not here” gag (i.e. Leroy getting super high, then calling the office un a panic to figure out where he is)
MGG To misquote MST3K: Doritos is going to have to run a whole campaign just to undo the damage this strip has done…
HtH I was going to Google “does viking hell include some kind of ocean?” but screw it, as long as they’re tortured for eternity, I’m OK with it..
HtH: I enjoyed Disney’s take on Loki from Norse mythology but appearing as non-corporeal talking orbs after death might be stretching poetic license a bit too far.
Hagar:
He rocked the boat, did Hagar, frank
These bubbles mark
o
o
o
o
o
Where Hagar sank
At long last, Lucky Eddie’s mermaid romance is about to pay off big. How will the change in power dynamics affect the crew? Tune in tomorrow, for…probably another dumbass strip about Honi’s stupid horse, or something.
Lockhorns: Sci-fi writer William Gibson once said “The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed”, and that describes The Lockhorns perfectly. The creators know that these days professionals wear bluetooth earpieces and work with huge flatscreen monitors and go on drunken Reddit binges. But they have no clue that middle manager schlubs haven’t had secretaries taking calls for them for decades now. Leroy should be getting a notification from Zoom AI Assistant telling him he has 5 messages, “Summary: multiple queries regarding number of zany massages possessed by Leroy”.
Hagar: Through their noble deeds and dedication to meditation, Hagar and his crew have broken out of the cycle of reincarnation and achieved nirvana. Their souls have escaped their bodies and had one final moment of enlightenment before they are extinguished forever.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS:
My paper planner, which often errs, says Wed. is Earth Day and Friday is Arbor Day. (I thought Tree Day was in dall, be t what do we know)
BF: Earth Day is coming! Any adult plans?
MG&G: not a usual read, so thanks, Josh, for reminding us to celebrate 4/20 (but I’ll pass as I smoke nothing )
LOCKHORNS: Leroy should try weaponized neediness at home. It just might be the catalyst that blows up the whole miserable thing.
DtM: What was said was, “We’re bound by federal and state law to let you back in.”
RMMD: “Ooh, ooh! And that guy at the bar! It’s Ernest Borgnine! He’s alive! I’m gonna be RICH!”
MW: I’d love to come live with you! All I need is a temperature-controlled ascot vault.”
* I hereby swear that this is my last ascot-themed witticism.*
MW: Hey, you know what would have been a better ending to this story? The revelation that the imprisoned scammer escaped because of HH’s donation. The story could have been “HH lost a bunch of money, but at least something good came out of it.” Sticking the half-assed resolution in the middle just trivializes the whole thing. It just looks like HH can’t live by himself anymore, which is just sad. And it’s completely shallow, when senior independence is a real problem that Mary Worth could have done a good job with. It wasted a perfectly good plot.
Or, you know, anybody being the least bit bothered about $200,000 being stolen.
Luann: Oh goody, Shannon is back.
CS: Oh goody, the Batton Death March is back.
9CL: Oh goody, this comic strip still exists. I haven’t even looked at it today, or any time in the last five years. But I’m sure it’s icky.
Mother Goose and Grimm:
Today’s strip has inspired me to re-read Betty Smith’s powerful, poignant coming-of-age novel, A Dorito Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Lockhorns: No doubt, one day Leroy’s little briefcase will contain a Mac-10. At home, Loretta’s last words were along the lines of “Pfft, You couldn’t hit an elephant with that th___”
If you visit the pet store chains, you’ll see that Big Feline is committed to marketing catnip as kitty weed. A few sniffs, and your cuddly companion will tear through all the junk food in your pantry and appearing in Richard Linklater films.
Crankshaft : NO GODDAMNIT NOT THAT FACE AGAIN
*! AND STOP ASKING HIM TO TALK ABOUT HOW STARSTRUCK HE WAS WHEN HE FIRST STARTED OUT THAT’S *ALL* HE’S TALKED ABOUT SO FAR MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE!*It’s always the same face! The same exact Batton Thomas face! Every time!**************
Dick Tracy : “Joker? You’re supposed to take those out of the deck! *another card is drawn* What the- “Rules for Draw and Stud Poker”!? ”
**************
Dustin : DustinDad, the other way that bit of roleplay was ending was with DustinMom jamming her entire arm up your butthole… unless you’re into THAT, I guess.
Too far? (In more ways than one, HEY YO)After watching The Terror, I’m disappointed that the final fate of the Hagar crew doesn’t involve struggling to survive in barren Arctic wilderness on a diet of human flesh.
Wary Morth:
“All right! I’ll just make this flat over to Trixie first, so she’ll have a place to live in when she comes.”
__________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
All Mae Mae Cloddiddler has to tell the paparazzi is that she’s her own maid, and that puts paid to Moustachero’s little scheme. Feel stupid now, don’t you, Moustachero?
__________________________________
Hägår thé Hørrïblê:
Wait till you read the sequel: Hägår thé Hørrïblê, Viking Ghöst.
__________________________________
Hägår thé Hørrïblê 2:
Congratulations to Neptune, God of the Sea, for blowing up that storm just to sink Hägår thé Hørrïblê and his crew. Now that they’re drowned the sea can go right bank to normal – and did!
Aw, couldn’t Hagar and his crew been at least memorialized in a Gordon Lightfoot song where the witch of April comes stealing?
Murky Tail:
Meanwhile the Woodsman Olympics was a huge success and Tad is going to build the stadium exactly where he wants to.
@Ukranazi Stepan: The New Yorker once responded to Trump’s push to acquire Greenland with Denmark making a counteroffer to buy the US. If that fictional deal went through, our alphabet would look like the last half of your post.
Questioned Discontent:
Just what the hell is the “job” Emily just said she’d take, anyway?
She’s a brilliant programmer and materials scientist, so obviously it’ll be along the lines of tea lady or something like that.
MG&G: At least the colorist remembered to make Sumo’s eyes pink.
HtH: The curse transformed them into Rovers and they had to go work in The Village.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
Plus side, the stupid hat is gone. Win in my book!
“No, I was asking if I could have any massages,” Leroy replied, before being jumped by security and getting perp walked into HR.
***
I swear that green cat looks like Seth Rogan.
Mary Worth:
“It’s funny, Dad! — the boys thought that I had been talking about Hamilton the other day, when actually I was just commenting to my ‘hub’ about how chilly it had been outside and I said, ‘Aaron — brrr!’ “
@Ukranazi Stepan:
a) Emily is going to re-design (read : “create from scratch”) Cubetown’s library’s intranet/software structure so The Librarian
can take all the creditstart doing her job properly.b) Emily is being added to the ever-growing list of people who have to babysit Elisabeth Appleboom, who is totally a genius, and not some idiotic mythomaniac goblin who tricked an even stupider puddle of goop
*into thinking she can do science.I *know* the strip is going out of its way to show us that Moray and the Director are disctinc entities RIGHT NOW, but I still mentally interpret Moray as “The Director pretends to be her own dimwitted assistant, except the “dimwitted” part isn’t an act”MANDRAKE: Villains need to take a course teaching them to strike before announcing their plans.
MW: I my experience, intergenerational households are great– for the first fortnight. After that, it’s a battle for Head of Household.
S4th: no need to admit she just preferred gossiping with Marilyn.
JP: The unnatural pose in the second panel is most likely due to an artist who didn’t bother to find a reference image of two people carrying another, but I’m choosing to think that rigor mortis has set in.
Also, did I miss a scene where they rented the storage unit, or does Ann always do that when she gets out of prison, just in case?
@Banana Jr. 6000: On MW – Ah, but we’re nowhere near the end! The bolding gives the clue! Sharon’s husband is a *good man* but knows nothing of what’s transpired thus far. First, Sharon will need to go tell him which will probably take about a month, then the husband will be the one to get “irrationally” angry that his moron of an in-law dropped so much money on what was obviously a scam and refuse to let Ascot-Boy anywhere near his home (let’s give that confrontation two weeks), then Sharon will seek out Mary for her med- er, advice, that’s another month.
All of this will be interspersed with My Johnny Lies Over the Internet either swimming the Pacific or just merely jogging a couple of blocks to Charterstone to reveal all. The final wrap-up will take a month, followed by a final month and change of Mary’s Victory Boat Parade and Dinner.
So, stay strapped in, we’ll be here alllllll summer!
FG Hmmm, Sunday’s “next” was the Southern court as the memoir had Ming and Rollin heading south, but we’re starting with the reading done. Either they lost a week’s strips or the glowing underground life just off the last panel is a judge and jury rudely interrupted by these interlopers.
FC Meanwhile, the Keanes are visiting Whoville!
HtH: Katsushika Hokusai did it better.
MW: Sharon’s planned talk with Aaron: “How would you like to see me dressed in nothing but an ascot?”
Mother Goose & Grimm: Grimmy and– I don’t know, Blue Cat?– look terrified of their hulking green friend. Unlike pot, I guess catnip does make felines explode into playful violence. They’ve been on the receiving end of this addict’s ire before.
Also, I realize that “ugly art” is part of the conceit of some strips, but this is the first time I’ve looked at a strip and decided I wanted to look at literally anything else. This is some Ren and Stimpy-grade unpleasantness, and the bag of Doritos is the most legible object in the entire strip.
GT: Dude, you’re talking about one of the hottest issues in the news today. I’m guessing you do this frequently, plus you have one if not all of the nonconformists in your class. Are you *really* that surprised at this turn of events?
Also, note that none of the other students are following the nonconformists. All of them are probably thinking ‘It’s a day that ends in ‘y’, here comes another meaningless try-hard stunt from the coach’s kid!’
Luann: [laughter subsides] …Seriously though, we’ve got to get rid of that brat and make it look like an accident. You’ve got experience in that line, don’t you, T. ‘Insurance Payoff’ J.?
RMMD: When did that ‘one arm straight out’ pose become standard for newscasters? Seems like that would get tiring really quick.
JP: If you’re going to go full clown show, why not have the girls wheel him up in a shopping cart or wheelbarrow?
B. Bailey: Not the kind of smoking everyone is talking about on 4/20 but nice try.
Mother Goose and Grim:
Josh has exhibited this strip as the single 4/20 joke in today’s comics, but after reading it I would humbly suggest that there were in fact no 4/20 jokes in today’s comics, by any reasonable definition of the work “joke”.
Congratulations to Mike Wazowski on his new gig as a one-off in a newspaper comic.
@The Quiet Man:
I’ve got the Charterstone pool party penciled in for the second week of September!
@The Quiet Man: Oh, it won’t be anywhere near that good.
FC: The debacle continues when Jeffy announces he’ll have what his Dad ordered: “Moscow pussy” (for octopus).
BG&SS: Forget the kittens. Occam’s razor says Snuffy fucking that cow was the real last straw.
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We shall linger in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till a sea-girl saves Eddie, and Hagar drowns.
The Love Song of J. Hagar Prufrock, as found in the Poetic Eddas.
GT: Walkout?! What?! I pity the dool
@Banana Jr. 6000: Charterstone strikes me as the kind of community with a clause banning anyone under 25 from living there, so I am hoping for a vignette where the grandsons visit Harv and some resident calls the police on the “teenage delinquents.”
GT: “Walkout?! I pity the fool who says walkout!!”
“Hey you’re not the real Mr T!”
Lockhorns: “The office clown, the lovable loser…”.
Wait, I’m supposed to have been finding either of them lovable?
Blondie: Note to all the red pill males who don’t like it when a women actually eats: Dagwood suggested a full sundae on their first date and now he’s married to Blondie.
Hagar: To add insult to injury, since none of them died in battle, none of them are going to Valhalla, and thanks to Brother Olaf, they’re probably all going to Hell!
HtH
Full fathom five thy Viking lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are bubbles that were eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something tedious and dull.
Sea-mudgeons daily ring his knell:
The Comic Waste Land, as found on 4/20
@Voshkod:
Q. What would a 13th-century Icelandic child call out to a parent when he or she wanted to hear a bedtime story?
A. “Edda, Mommy!”
CS: “As we enter the eighth month straight of this non-stop interview, we had to take it to the office because we’ve been chased out of every restaurant in town because they got tired of us taking up space in booths and spending all day there, and Batton’s constant yakking repelled incoming customers.”
HtH: Caught in Ran’s net, Hagar drowns and goes to the hall of Aegir. Lucky Eddie, whose *cough* relationships with the denizens of the sea is well documented, is able to pull some strings with his connections and gets floated to safety.
MG&G: So, is green now the visual shorthand for “high”? And if so, what’s the new visual shorthand for “seasick”? We could ask the characters over in Hag…uh, never mind.
@Anonymous:
Yoday we learnt that the jellyfish is well aware that Cubetown is a dysfunctional mess and that Goddess Empress Claire is trying to clear up that mess although
1. As a librarian she has no training, experience, or ability for that task and
2. Is failing miserably at it,
But
The jellyfish won’t lend a tentacle to fix to the mess itself, or hire anyone competent to do it instead.
Hagar the Horrible-Luck Eddie is going to be sleeping with the fishes.
MW-“Clearly your caretakers at Charterstone aren’t doing a good job.”
Crankshaft – Head desk * Eye roll * Barf *
FC – Bemused waitress – questionable malaprop – Ohmigod! Nine months before Dolly was born, harlot Thel boinked Ed Crankshaft.
Frazz – Where’s the sign that says, “You’re superior to us because you’re a runner”?
Breaking Cat News – He forgot and typed out H@rvey’s name.
Mary Worth – She didn’t discuss it with the hub first!? An elderly parent moving in is a major decision that should not be made on the spur of the moment. Mary’s half assed meddling advice was to ” reconnect.” Maybe she should have had a conversation with Sharon about the steps she and HH should take in their reconnection. Maybe Mary didn’t foresee that minutes after they got together, Sharon would invite her father to move in. However, maybe Mary did anticipate this, but kept her mouth shut because she’s still pissed off that HH ignored her advice and sent all that money to “Trixie.”
Speaking as someone who grew up in a three generation household, I think that there are some compensations, but no house is big enough.
@But What Do I Know?: I almost went with The Tempest. I suppose this could work too:
Hagar the Horrible, a fortnight past deadline,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the raid and rapine
A current under sea
Picked his lines in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Pagan or Nondenominational Christian
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Hagar, who was once squat and ugly as you.
@Bob Tice: How is a 13th Century Icelandic child seeking a bedside story like a vegetarian ordering an appetizer at a sushi restaurant?
@Banana Jr. 6000: I never said it was going to be good, only that it’s not over yet; not by a long, long, looonnng shot.
C’shaft: Wow, wonder how many bloody deaths Chet Gould came up with while listening to this idiot blather on…
DT: I’m not sure I should trust the planning of a guy who calls himself “Solly Taire” but doesn’t realized you don’t use the jokers in his namesake game.
Dustin: Dustmom goes to great lengths to tell her husband she no longer finds hims sexually attractive.
GT: The point of a walkout is to create a large-scale disruption of work or education. If it’s just six kids it’s not a walkout; it’s just six kids who are getting detention and calls home to their parents.
JP: By this time Neddy and Ann have alerted the storage facility manager and three of his customers to the situation…
Luann: Silly, Shannon only exists to provide you with a surrogate child. If–and this is a big if–you and Toni ever do manage to procreate, she’ll just disappear into the void that has claimed Aaron Hill, Delta, Quill, Pru, and every other character Clan Evans no longer wishes to bother with.
MW: Look, Mr. Diva’s a good man, too. But if I went up to him and said, “Hey, is it okay if my dad lives with us?Because I already told him he could,” we’d be having an argument about one of us making major family-impacting decisions without even talking to the other first.
Pluggers can call it whatever they want, they’re still lazy.
@Voshkod:
Not sure — doesn’t mean a hill of beans to me!
Crank: “Gould said that watching me talk gave him some great ideas for the next few Tracy Death Traps.”
Phantom: ”I’m planning on rewarding the cute one for acting without orders, but as for you, it’s straight to the stockade.”
MW: ”Well, the Hub usually refers to you as ‘that old fairy with the sailboat and the ascot,’ but I think we can work with that.”
Frazz Okay, I gotta admit that the sign that says “that’s lot of work for a banana” is a funny dig at runners, but I suspect that Mallett “borrowed” that from someone else.
Come to think, the expression “Sleep with the fishes” is just a more polite way to say “Rest in piss.”
Hagar –
♪ They couldn’t go back home to Norway
The best they could do was get drowned in a poor way
We always knew that was likely for those kind of guys
Oh, and that’s all I heard about Hagar and Eddie
Can’t tell you more, ’cause I told you already
And here we are waving Hagar and Eddie goodbye
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hey, Polonio! Ain’t that your boss?”
“Yes. Don Abundio is a boxing fan”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t care who wins or loses”
“He just likes to see people get the snot beaten out of them”
Oh, to Odin some cried that the storm should abide,
While others were Christian believers
But ’twas their fate to drown and as they went down,
“Fellas, we shouldn’t have been godless reavers!”
RMMD: “Large Scotch, please. No ice — it just slows me down.” Getting his lunch out of a bottle probably isn’t doing wonders for Lonnie’s sales career, either.
Nancy: This Caroline Cash person is guilty of one of my big comic strip peeves: characters constantly dripping sweat beads. No reason Sluggo should be perspiring this heavily today, unless the action has shifted to Khartoum.
@MKay:
Ascot is my witness, I will hold you to that.
@Ukulele Ike:
To be fair, that meeting he was in didn’t seem very long, and I doubt Old Town is any exotic distance. So that Scotch could be dessert! You know, breakfast dessert!
Lockhorns:
“Well, that’s just because I wanted to talk to you, Scheherazade!”
L’horns: Hmmm. Something tells me this joke was not written in 2026. Or this century. I’m not going to go through the vast Hoest Archives and find the original that ran in 1978 or whatever. But my guess is they just added that flatscreen computer monitor. They didn’t have to update the secretary because the Joni Mitchell look never goes out of style.
MG&G: Clearly, it’s Grimm who’s tripping, though. I mean, look at those facial expressions.
HTH: It seems as though the crew members have already died and been resurrected as tiny suns in panel two. I wonder what that means for the strip in the long run.
RMMD- (Guy in green shirt) Booze and pills this early in the day?
Lockhorns: I think it’s probably worse for Leroy when the contempt is coming from a cute 20-something receptionist whose body hasn’t yet been turned gnomish by the vicissitudes of life. How can he fantasize about random hotties when in bed with Loretta if all the real-life young women are so mean to him? (Of course, its possible that he actually has a humiliation fetish — but if that were the case, his life would already be about a million times better than it actually is.)
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if encountering the letter “z” in a book literally makes you fall asleep. It’s a medical marvel!
@Banana Jr. 6000:
Nonsense. Why should they? They can pick from the money trees that apparently grow on Charterstone grounds. (I’m just saying that Wilbur getting sex-grifted didn’t stop him from living the luxurious jet-set lifestyle that every mid-tier columnist enjoys. And Estelle, an elderly woman with no visible means of income, was more worried about her broken heart then some Danny Devito-ish creep running off with her retirement fund.)
Hagar and his crew rise from the water as soap bubbles. Not sure how that fits with the whole Valhalla thing.
@Ukulele Ike: It is all the heavy dark clothing – it soaks up the sun! Notice that the sun in Nancy’s universe is overhead beating down leaving shadows around the feet.
@Ken: Dawn is “barely legal” so she’d be under 25 (don’t let her tenth year as a Santa Royal University student fool you. She’s still about 20 or so. And she was even younger in the pre-Moy era.)
@Ken: EXACTLY! it is a prior unit from some earlier scam. Neddy better be careful or she’ll end up wrapped in a plastic bag covered with quicklime.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
A nice noir twist would be when confronted Mae Mae gives her given name and says she used to work as the maid for Lorna Starr but she was told she wouldn’t be needed for a while. The papparazzi already know she is the maid and so the story dies out. BUT moustache man desperate to make any money spins up a story that Lorna Starr mysteriously disappeared and maid took it on the lam making Mae Mae a suspect in the disappearance of Lorna!
Do we get the spinoff, “Haggison’s Island”?
Ziggy-Poke Ziggy in his stomach and see if he giggles.
Crankshaft-And out of ideas already.
The Familliar Mucus: What kind of restaurant did Mommy take the Mellonheads to? The guy in the next booth is removing his pants!
GT: Walking out in the middle of class is not cool. Keri shouldn’t have bothered to show up at all.
RMMD: “We have hundreds of photos of this woman waddling in and out of the Lorna Starr mansion over the past few years. Congratulations, Hawkshaw, you’ve located the fat maid.”
(Again, I find this “perfect disguise” plot hilarious. No offense meant to Persons of Substance)
@Voshkod: Nicely done!
@GarrisonSkunk: I’m surprised that Thel has ordered a knife-and-fork meal. Every parent knows that you need to keep at least one hand free to beat the children.
FC — Dolly’s order is unusual but not technically inaccurate. But the guy in the next boot is definitely either jacking off or pooping.
CURTIS: Same here. When I crashed and lost my front tooth, my dentist also said, “let me get you a plate.”
@treetown: Oooh, that would be an interesting twist. Pity this is Rex Morgan where nothing interesting is allowed.
JP: similar in broken English, polite manners, apparent ruthlessness, perhaps Brogdan and Wurst come from the same family. Or at least the same culture.
RwOrange: good one today. Took me two reads to catch both little jokes.
Crankshaft: The big question is when Batton Thomas got to speak with his idol, did he get to call him “Chet,” or did he get an imperious “That’s MISTER GOULD to you, peon!”
Luann: Let’s laugh at a little child for doing normal child things, yes.
And these people are supposed the paragon of…well…paragons.
JP: This is what, day seven with the dialogue only consisting of “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?!” “Hide the evidence first, then we talk!”? Is this going to be the rest of the strip forever as Bogdan slowly decays in the background?
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: I like to think that Gould spontaneously dubbed BT with his own classic Dick Tracy-style nickname. “Fuckface” would be good.
JP: Okay, there’s no way these two beanpoles are lifting this guy completely off the ground. Even if they were much bigger and stronger, you’re going to carry him by the wrists and ankles. What’s the point of hoisting him up underneath the arms? You might as well carry your shopping cart through Walmart when picking up groceries.
@TheDiva: MW: Reminds me of that scene in The Goonies, where the fat kid tells the deformed giant. “You are going to live with me!” despite never talking this over with his parents.
MW- It may be a safe bet that once the “Hub” realizes how easy it is to get the old man up off some commas and zeros, he’ll be on board with letting Hardly move in. “Aaron, honey, you know how you’ve been wanting a motorcycle? Dude,you’re getting a Hardly Davidson!” Should they get a sidecar for Trixie?
The Lockhorns – Not having phone messages is considered a good thing now.
Mother Goose – I guess the green cat is supposed to represent “catnip”, but that should really be an orange cat since they are generally dumb.
Hagar the Horrible – Eddie will be saved by his mermaid girlfriend, but the rest of the crew will have to take her more fish-faced cousins as brides as the price of being saved. Hagar is spared since he’s already married.
GA: Right about now, Gertie is really wishing Scandarelli had just left Walt on the Train to Hell.
@TheDiva: Luann: Silly, Shannon only exists to provide you with a surrogate child. If–and this is a big if–you and Toni ever do manage to procreate, she’ll just disappear into the void that has claimed Aaron Hill, Delta, Quill, Pru, and every other character Clan Evans no longer wishes to bother with.
And let’s remember that she was only ever created (well, technically repurposed) to serve as a walking cockblock once Brad and Toni started dating, to prevent them from ever being alone together. It creates a huge plot hole when you ask yourself who was watching Shannon when Toni was dating Dirk. No way he would’ve allowed his girlfriend to constantly be saddled with some kid.
@Rover Berkeley:
#95. JP: it could be different for others, but I’ve found loads are easier to carry if I hoist them near the center of gravity. But i rarely carry bodies of adult men.
HtH – It’s okay, I’ve seen this before. Helga and Eddie’s mermaid girlfriend will be mourning them, and it will turn out they’re fine, they washed up on a beach with a five-star resort, they didn’t send word with a messenger because they wanted to surprise their loved ones.
@The Rambling Otter: Yeah, but that’s something a kid would plausibly do–a woman who has (presumably) been married to her spouse long enough to raise almost college-age kids should be just a teensy bit more prudent about such matters.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Considering the tough competition, it’s really impressive that Batiuk has created such a strong contender for “Most Pathetic Gary Stu Character Ever.”
Early on in Mother Goose and Grimm’s run, there was an animated series.
It didn’t last very long, but some people felt it had potential.
Especially with Ultimate Nerd actor Eddie Deezen playing Mother Goose’s pig friend Hamm.
(Whatever happened to Hamm anyway?)
@TheDiva: You’re right.
Although I think the cast of Mary Worth is catching the “immature adult-virus” that has been plaguing Luann for years.
@The Rambling Otter: He got very involved in breakfast one morning.
@The Rambling Otter: He’s either turning tricks in high-heel drag over in Heathcliff, or made it big in Louisville as a Kentucky Hot Brown.
@Voshkod: Ooooooo! Damn my eyes for deciding to include a link!
@The Rambling Otter:
And Sumo?
LUANN: Yes, it is quite hilarious that you three alleged adults have never made any serious effort whatsoever to raise Shannon in a way that would help her grow up and become more bearable to the rest of society. True, a child resenting a new baby would be normal. But a child who behaves the way Shannon does and constantly shifts behaviors within a range of about three years old to eleven years old is bizarre. And none of you can apparently even see that, including Toni, who is presented as the brains of the household.
Honestly, Josh, if you ever decide to end your LUANN-reading, that will be understandable. As comforting as it is for some of us to know that you share and understand our suffering, you have a right to guard your own sanity.
MT: Oh. Oh my goodness. I think this story may actually be winding up! [hears Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in her head]
@MKay: Hey, wait a minute! Ascot humor is a bright spot in the dim glurginess of this story!
What I’d really like now is to see “Trixie,” having safely rejoined civilization, decide that his tribute to his biggest score ever, the score that helped him escape, will be the frequent wearing of ascots. And also he should cut and style his hair, because let’s face it, his captivity ‘do was beyond awful.
@Human-eared Dragon: That cartoon predates most of the current cast, back when it was only Mother Goose, Grimmy, Attila and Hamm.
Hamm was pretty much a pig version of Garfield’s “Lyman” as he was a character for Mother Goose to talk to as a friend, but got phased out when Grimmy took over the role himself (Or rather Mother Goose’s generic geriatric bird friends and dates)
I love that someone is trying to gaslight Leroy Lockhorn, the man who perfected gaslighting while both gaslighting his wife and being gaslit by her. I also love the word gaslight, in all its permuations.
I assume that when inspiration (and I use the word very loosely) struck the creator of Hagar the Horrible, the first panel was going to read, “this is a once in a lifetime storm!” Which is both a real phrase and also something people might actually say. But then the creative rapture was interrupted person-from-Porlock-style, and when they returned to work all they could think was, “what’s a sequence of words that might in hindsight appear balefully ironic to Hagar’s drowning crew? Yep, those are all words. That’s definitely good enough!”
Couple of notes from The Daily Cartoonist: Terry Beatty is back as the artist for “Rex Morgan, MD”’, four weeks after OPEN HEART SURGERY.
(Beatty supplied the guest artist with the Mei Mei scripts)
And Lincoln Peirce is ending the daily version of “Big Nate” on June 16 and will only produce a Sunday strip (along with, I’m pretty sure, more “Nate” book projects.
Mother Goosed and Grim: High Green Cat(played by Jack Soo) “Has anyone seen my legs? My feet appear to be free floating on the couch!” Mother Goose (played by Abe Vigoda) “Four hundred years writing stories for Frazzhole kids,I finally find something that makes ME feel good and it has to be illegal!”
@The Rambling Otter: (Whatever happened to Hamm anyway?)
__________________
He went over to Pixar and made it big in the”Toy Story” films.
@Poteet: I’m sorry, but I have to challenge your assertion that there are actually 3 adults depicted in LUANN.
@GarrisonSkunk: Let’s go down to the beach and shoot some clams!
MW – Sharon is just assuming her father won’t crap in Aaron’s shoes, shatter any of his prized possessions, or call him a pompous axx.
@treetown:
That would be interesting. We can’t have interesting. Interesting is verboten.
@richardf8: Still better than living with Ed Crankshaft.
@Voshkod: I also enjoy the word “gaslight.” I should probably watch the Movie, some day.
@Ukulele Ike:The term has so thoroughly entered the language that I once saw a guy on a movies group ask if there was an example of a movie where the concept came up.
@Ukulele Ike: Well, she mudt have been in “Into the Spiderverse,” because the Secret Identity nonsense is right up there with Newspaper Spiderman.
RMMD – Maybe Vito Coreleone over here will make Lonnie an offer he can’t refuse.
@25 A Grave Mind: OH.THANK.GOODNESS. I hated that STUPIDSPARKLYHAT almost as much as Poteet hates June Morgan’s spit curl.
@56 Voshkod: “How is a 13th Century Icelandic child seeking a bedside story like a vegetarian ordering an appetizer at a sushi restaurant?” They both suck?
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Bwahaha!
@Baja Gaijin: Now I’m imagining June wearing the sparkly hat. Or Mark with the hat and the spit curl. ARRRRGH.
@Tonio: And where Lucky Eddie yells “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”?