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
96 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.
The contrast between Hagar’s resigned recognition of how terrible the joke in his strip is to Dennis and co.’s desperate denial of how much theirs sucks is palpable.
Dennis attempting to usurp his father’s position by becoming the master of dad jokes in the house… Menace level: Oedipal.
Pretentious Pluggers grow Van Dykes.
C’shaft: I would think that someone who styles himself as “The World’s Greatest Band Director” would practice better instrument care.
Dustin: “Bartender, can you get me an angel shot neat, with a ‘gut punch and lifetime ban for this guy’ chaser?”
GT: Okay, I’ll buy that Keri’s eating disorder is rooted in body dysmorphia, as it’s a condition that affects many gender non-conforming individuals and can lead to unhealthy coping habits. What I don’t buy is that they decided Dorothy, who is not depicted as being any skinnier than the other characters and whose long blonde hair suggests a traditionally feminine appearance, represents the physical ideal they hope to achieve.
MT: Okay, we have a woman being violently threatened by her gun-wielding ex, can we dispense with the cheesy wordplay? Geez, even the current Mary Worth arc hasn’t sunk that low.
MW: Dirk acts like my kids stuck on a tough level of Geometry Dash.
Phantom: Really? You’re pulling the “primitive tribe hails white man as their long-awaited messiah” thing in this, The Year of Our Lord Twenty Twenty-Five?
RMMD: What’s the fun in travelling alone? Speaking from experience: ample time to relax and reflect, freedom to set your own schedule, cultivating confidence and independence so you don’t wind up a sad idiot who sits at home alone all day….
Heathcliff: One of the reasons responsible pet owners don’t allow their cats to roam outside is because of the potential for unplanned cat pregnancies so it seems reasonable to think that Heathcliff here has just been charged with the equivalent of a cat sex-crime. Hopefully they neuter him immediately.
DT: “Nazi superpowers — ACTIVATE!” as Totten takes down four cops single-handedly.
Crank: You weren’t standing at the door to make sure every one of them took their horn home over break to practice? “ONE FULL HOUR a day, you little shits. Scales, scales, scales!”
BF: Slut Friend submits to temptation yet again. At least lemon cake won’t give her a case of the clap.
Pluggers: The weird thing about this Pluggers is that Bill Radvansky from New Kensington PA does not have a double chin or a goatee. He does look like the kind of person though that would make fun of the facial hair of other people.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pittsburgh/news/new-kensington-approves-73-percent-increase-garbage-pickup/
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
Halpertfacing? More like halberdfacing, amiright?
RMMD: “C’mon, Bring something new to the game!”
What’s-his-name has started a new career recruiting potential Today show hosts.
DtM – You don’t realize it, Dennis, but you and that recliner go way back as well. All the way to your beginnings. Which is why Alice is looking on with memories and sly amusement.
Phantom: “Just hush and step into the pot, large and tasty-looking man.”
@Ukulele Ike, Phantom: “Large and tasty man? Did I end up in the Burber Compound?”
Who loves their chair the most? Greg Watkins, Dagwood Bumstead or Henry Mitchell?
DtM: He befriended a studious and responsible Black kid and is now attempting to corrupt him by showing him how much fun it would be to just slack off. Dennis is basically Tom Sawyer at this point and you don’t want to know what nickname he plans to give his new friend James.
@TheDiva: 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.”
OFF-TOPIC: I think that’s basically what memes are. They’re a tool for expressing complex emotions. If say someone looked at me like Firestarter Girl or Hide-The-Pain Harold, you know exactly what I mean, or you can quickly look it up. You’ve had that emotion, and you’ve seen it in other people. But there’s no word for it, nor an easy way to express it verbally.
Memes are almost a language in themselves. And it’s an exceptionally useful language in the typed-word environment of the Internet, where it’s difficult to express emotion or tone at all without auxiliary mechanisms like ;)
@GarrisonSkunk: Depending on the chair’s legs, you may have to throw in all male 9CL characters.
FC – If they’re having a Who Is The Bigger Moron contest, it’s a tie.
JP – One bright spot in this stupidity: I like the artwork of the second panel.
Mary Worth – Seriously, has Dawn been presented before as a terrible bowler? She met Looker Dirk when she was bowling, but I don’t recall that she was so klutzy at it. It could be that she’s tense and worried that he’ll say something abusive, and that throws her off her game. Or it could be a plot device to make Dirk insult her.
With those muscular arms and physique, Dirk could be one of the beefcake template males in 9CL. However, he doesn’t have the necessary thrall personality. I also can’t imagine that world class musicians would go bowling. I wonder how Dirk feels about spending all his time at a pond or public swimming pool.
Frazz – Frazz can’t wait to leave and meet up with Caulfield so they can mock Mrs. Olsen behind her back.
@Bob Tice: #3
“Um…bat it? Bounce it? Dribble it? Kick it? Yeah – bounce it!! All the way across two lanes! Yay!!! Hey Dirk – how bout *that*, babe??”
MW: The sound effects are lacking here. The ball should go “WHAM” when she drops it in the alley, and then “CLUNK,” or better, “KLUNK” when it falls in the gutter. Don Martin would do it that way.
@Hurting Joshs and his wittle wifes feelings: Um… in order to be an insult it has to be at least somewhat comprehensible.
Democrats? Doge? WTF?
Are you using an online randomizer to write your crap?
@Lauralot: #24
This being “Mary Worth,” we are of course *slowly* (i.e., redundantly) building to a climactic moment when Dirk explodes and physically assaults poor Dawn, leading to a heroic intervention by Jared, Jess calling 911, and Dirk being hauled off in cuffs. Muffins ensue.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: #34
I would say an appropriate application of “canceled” is called for.
@vince: I get it. I’m also wearing a sweater with elbow pads
Getting there….
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: #43
” it’s apparent that June has no idea how bowling works.”
She needs to take a tutorial in sports-action drawing from the artistic team at Gil Thorp.
@Voshkod: #50
I have no words…I feel as though I just completed a graduate coiurse in ancient history… *ovation*
MW: I have a sinking feeling that our local geeky creep Jared, who is taking up the Creator’s Pet mantle with Wilbur indisposed, is going to be the hero of the story and I have my barf bucket ready when he receives his undeserved platitudes.
Six Chex and A Cat Named Ruth Buzzi : “Do you believe in the hereafter?” “Yes” “….then you know what I’m here after.”
@TheDiva: “Phantom: Really? You’re pulling the “primitive tribe hails white man as their long-awaited messiah” thing in this, The Year of Our Lord Twenty Twenty-Five?”
Uh.
Haven’t you heard?
That’s now the official position of the US Department of State, the US Department of Education, the US Department of Defense and President Musk, son of South Africa.
@Needless Exposition: The problem is, there are literally no good characters to root for in this comic.
8 Deadly Words in writing.
“I don’t care about any of these characters”
@GarrisonSkunk: You want a Walnetto?
I feel like Josh isn’t writing about the lameness of Mary Worth anymore. Did it get TOO lame to make fun of??
@GarrisonSkunk: I get the reference!
That skit is one of my all time favorites.
love is... being her tin man.
@vince: 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?
_________________________
“Its a beautiful day to raid the neighborhood, A wonderful day for a neighbor could your stuff be mine? Won’t your stuff be mine?
Pluggers: Man, Ethan Hawke has really let himself go!
Pluggers: ‘Reality Bites’ is just what GenX Pluggers call donut holes
Pluggers: Everyone knows the ‘real’ reason Pluggers grow a goatee is to keep incognito after they bounce cheques at the local Tractor Supply Co.
Pluggers: A Plugger with a goatee is a lot like a mule with a spinning wheel…no one knows how he got it and danged if he knows what to do with it (Tip o’ the cap to Lyle Lanley)
Pluggers: So The Bear-Man and Roo-Woman in Pluggers have really been Dan Cortes and Daisy Fuentes all along !?! Who knew?
@The Rambling Otter: The only entertaining characters in Mary Worth are Libby the one-eyed cat and Pierre the French bulldog followed by Dr. Ed’s cat Odin. And in terms of humans, Madi was actually rather sympathetic due to her sad backstory before she ate the muffins and got reprogrammed to love
Big BrotherMary Worth. Everyone else has nothing to them that makes them relatable or sympathetic.MW-“Here, Dawn! Let me show you a strike!”
Archie-Does that school not have any special ed classes?
@UncleJeff: @I speak Jive: Nice to see Ruth Buzzi is still alive and kicking, even if she doesn’t have Artie to kick around anymore.
Hagar: Hagar had better be careful not to get shot with a poison dart! According to Jim’s coworker Dwight, “It kind of sounds like he [would] deserve it, opening another man’s treasure and all.”
Dennis the Menace: Henry’s sittin’ in his La-Z-Boy, remembering life before his cra-z-boy.
It’s weird that the commenter @14 didn’t go with some sort of Dennis the Menace DEI jab. I mean, Josh – and all of us in the 1974 Club – readily admit our Pluggerly traits. It doesn’t make us liberal, just fifty.
Now, if we happen to be liberal as well, so be it. But correlation does not imply causation.
I don’t know – I had accidental exposure to Mallard Fillmore this morning and I still have a bad taste in my mouth from it.
@Old School Allie Cat: I imagine the really dedicated political trolls can go after Josh on Bluesky, assuming he doesn’t block them.
@Stop Motion Cyclops: Dennis is telling Dad jokes today and using conservative talking points yesterday, he’s turning into a boomer, the most truly menacing form.
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Dennis the Plugger?