Big news, everyone
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Hagar the Horrible, 4/27/26
Big news, everyone! A new named character has been added to Hagar the Horrible, and he’s a servant/butler type named “Charles” with weird swoopy hair and a suit jacket but also a short unhemmed tunic/skirt situation going on. Probably we won’t ever see him again, but, I dunno, they gave him a name! Maybe we will! Who knows!
The Phantom, 4/27/26
Big news, everyone: There’s a new Phantom story starting that’s launching with a bang — a grey alien wearing a suit is flying in a private jet from Washington, D.C. to Guantanamo Bay — and while probably it won’t ever really live up to that opening image, you have to admit it’s the most incredible opening image any of the soap opera strips have given us in quite a while.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 4/27/26
Big news, everyone, and it’s not good: Grimm, the beloved title character from the syndicated newspaper comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm, hungers for human flesh.
79 replies to “Big news, everyone”
I haven’t read The Phantom in a while, but I’m IN for this story—especially if it features Heloise Walker sharing a space taxi with Mary Worth, heading back to the mothership.
Phantom:
Vindicta casually glances out the window of the plane, only to be terrified by the nightmarish sight of William Shatner crouching on the wing at 20,000 feet.
Phantom:
“She don’t fly, she don’t fly, she don’t fly —
Champagne.”
— Eric Clapton, channeling J.J. Cale (adapted)
MW: Looks like Sharon has adjusted her driver’s seat to be outside the car. Is that a design flaw, or a feature that gives you more shoulder room?
Most people read The Jungle and have the luxury of their modern lives put into perspective. Grimm reads it and begins to weep, cursing the 1906 Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.
Phantom:
“It appears we’ll be on the ground at oh-two-hundred hours, sir — but that’s not black and white.”
“You’d never know that from today’s first panel, Captain!”
The alien glowers. 1: Grim business awaits at Guantanamo. 2: Veuve Clicquot?! He’s a Moet man!
Phantom: Why is Vindicta relying on a plane for transportation? Is his UAP in the shop or something? I hope he’s at least traveling on that private rental airline that will have a car waiting for him when they land…!
@Charterstoned: I like the implied backstory here, though.
“Kids! Grandpa is going to be staying with us!”
“Yay!”
“Now get in the car, you’ll need to carry the heavy boxes for him.”
(Teenage grumbling noises)
MG&G:
“What’s the Orijen of your thinking on that, Grimm?”
I kept trying for a Charles In Charge quip, but they all wound up even dumber than a medieval butler wearing David Letterman’s coat, and I got sad.
I can’t see how humiliating the barbarians by forcing them to eat with their hands at ‘peace talks’ is going to end well…
MW: Does an inflatable woman count as “in-person love?” Asking for an inflatable friend.
RMMD: This really is a one-and-done way to make ends meet, unless Lonnie plans to become a Finder of Lost People.
HtH: I can’t stop thinking about how cold Charles’ legs must be.
HtH: Charles is the king’s (or whatever lesser noble) fool that he keeps wrapped up in a pitch black straightjacket.
Hagar and Horrible:
“Plus — invoking the readily apparent symbolism of your haberdashery, Charles — they could use the utensils on us, and we could all end up being kilt!”
Mother Goose and Grimm:
Grimm and Ralph might be having a pretty disturbing conversation, but don’t judge them too harshly: according to the label on those cans, they are surrounded by innumerable containers of preserved dog flesh, a situation bizarre and morbid enough to drive even the most stable canine to madness. Frankly the fact that they are confining their desire for revenge on the human race to their traditional enemies is a prodigious act of restraint.
Hagar: Charles makes the rookie mistake of thinking today’s meeting with the king was on medieval zoom.
MW: Is Moy taking ‘Masters of Misdirection’ pointers from the Evansii? We all thought it was going to be Mary’s car that runs over ‘Trixie’ but I guess it’s actually going to be Sharon with her gigantic SUV and that big honking trailer. That’s sure going to leave a mark!
JP: Speaking of which… when is AnnDoris going to break out the car battery? Are we sure the prison she was in wasn’t Abu Ghraib and she wasn’t one of the guards? I mean, good grief…
RMMD: Lonnie Smurf was one of Peyo’s less endearing creations.
GT: Sir, I only asked you why you are wearing that ridiculous getup.
Luann: Les, have you been eating the paste again?
The Phantom:
At first glance I initially thought that this particular strip was Mary Worth. If Mary suddenly began sticking her nose in intergalactic affairs you better believe I’d sit up and take notice.
Pluggers: The fact that they’re bears should make this a lot funnier. “A plugger knows that when his wife says to take the trash out, he has to resist the temptation to dig through it.”
Luann: Actually, Ms. Fogerty, Luann *didn’t* interview three people, because she failed to submit the assignment on time. But you’ve made the class even easier for her, by letting her friends grade her. What’s the final exam, counting to ten all by yourself?
CS: There are a lot of reasons why someone might say “I can hardly bring myself to look at that shelf”. But having a hardback collection that’s complete except for a single paperback isn’t one of them. Especially when you’re at a book fair, and you can just buy the last hardcover book to complete it.
The Phantom: The book How Not To Write A Novel uses Dr. Nefaro as a placeholder villain name for its examples. But they were being intentionally obvious, to make a point.
Umm..I believe they’re called mail-persons now Grimm. You’re going to get cancelled for being so sexist and un-woke.
@Anonymous: Yeah, the Simpsons covered this back in…. the 90’s. Further showing how out of touch this comic is.
Bart: The Mail-Lady’s here!
Lisa: Mail Carrier…
Phantom:
Is Phantom this reprobate’s quarry?
If so, he is going to be sorry!
When Phantom is through
He’ll give him his due
He’ll go back to Alpha Centauri!
Dustin Ed’s coworker is chuckling because he has an eating disorder and a dysfunctional marriage. She really hates him!
Mary Worth: There goes old whatsisface. I’d say let us never speak of him again, if we’d ever been able to speak of him in the first place.
So, does this mean that Hagar is literally the leader of ALL Vikings?
Or is Kingy-McKingface just making peace with one tiny faction?
I would honestly love to see the resolution of this arc, except obviously it won’t go anywhere and tomorrow we’ll get… Snert? Something about Snert probably.
FG: Further searching reveals another tome Ming ordered destroyed, the only surviving copy of his awful vanity-press published Great Mongosian Novel about a Sensitive Young Man.
MW: Sir, your face is melting like one of Salvador Dali’s clocks. You aren’t finding in-person love.
Ralph’s tiny little hand/paw may be the most disturbing thing you’ll see in today’s comics.
Hagar the Horrible: A true gentleman knows that you only use the top button on a double-breasted jacket. Of course, a true gentleman knows that a patternless, mauve kilt is not suitable for royal service. Or that jacket buttons should not be square. Say, who is this guy again, and what happened to our silverware?!
Phantom: Purple Stripeypants fights interstellar fascism?
HtH: Well, according to King Arthur’s Tournament in Las Vegas (a source I’m sure is impeachable in its historic accuracy) you guys eat with your hands too, so why do you even have silverware to begin with?
MG&G: Given that most of the suburbs in my area don’t have mailboxes attached to each house but rather centralized drop points with cubbyholes assigned to each house in the vicinity, I’m wondering if the dog-chasing mailman is becoming a comedic artifact like the doctor’s head mirror. Either that or all cartoon canines will have to move out to remote rural areas.
Phantom: I guess I’m less surprised that there’s aliens in the Phantom-verse than I am that the Ghost Who Hoards Historic Artifacts hasn’t already gotten his hands on the remains of the Roswell crash.
HtH:
“And of course, Charles, you’ll be sure to use the Viking oven for dinner!”
That’s fantastic news! I’ve been a big fan of Comics Curmudgeon for ages, and I’m really excited to see Josh tackling a novel – newspaper comics are a fascinating world.
Also Hagar the Horrible: This king knows damn well Vikings eat their peas off their knife, just like any other working member of a war band. He’s just casting aspersions to cover up his degenerate adoption of that Italian innovation, the fork.
The Phantom: Great start to a new plot! But I dare Mike Manley to end it with a traveling circus rolling through Picadilly playing “Dem Bones,” I double-dog dare him!!
H&L A set of reading glasses for driving? But… but that will make distant focus worse! they don’t even have the right lens curvature to bring the images to the eye’s far point! (splutters in introductory physics)
GT I’d like to make a joke about a comically-traditional European getup tipping off the immigration authorities that your ancestors didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but I think it could end up political.
@StripReader: Man, bots are behind the times. Josh’s novel came out eleven years ago.
Spambot on comment 34
C’shaft: “It makes me realize just how much money I’ve wasted on your crappy books.”
Dustin: It’s funny because Dustdad’s need to hide his eating habits from his wife indicates severe domestic and/or personal problems.
GT: Coach Permawave’s tartan gives me hope that we’ll see the first Milford Highland games team. Less golfing, more caber tossing!
Luann: Les provides Tara with the most useful lesson she’ll receive in this class, by preparing her for the world of corporate sexual harassment.
MW: Slow your roll, Widower Hart! Mary already has a doting dupe she strings along for her own personal benefit!
MG&G – “So, for the love of God, get rid of all these cans of dog meat!”
Hagar – I guess this is the new world we’re living in: Every time I see something inexplicably weird in a comic strip, I’m going to suspect it was AI-generated. The giveaway is not how “Charles” is dressed, it’s the bizarre way the king’s word balloon carries over into the second panel. Back in my day, cartoonists made their own inexplicable weirdness! Hmph!
HtH — Yes, Sire. But it is going to make the soup course a bit messy.
The Ghost Who Flies Coach — Am I the only one who believes that the Alien Overlord is miffed because the air turbulence has prematurely mixed his Kir Royale?
HtH: This strip has never been about historical accuracy but I feel as though we’re really starting to feel that anachronism drift. ‘Charles’ looks like he could have stepped out of the Edwardian era while his sire looks like he’s from some unspecified point in the middle ages. I’m not even going to touch the fact that he seems to be sitting on a La-Z-Boy
Phantom: Arriving at Guantanamo at 02:00? Just enough time to watch The Grudge! Obviously The Ring would have been first choice of early 200s supernatural horror films, but it runs a little longer and you don’t want to get stuck wrapping up the ending while people are already deplaning.
Phantom – Oh, his name is “Mr. Vindicta” and the story is called “The Grudge”? They should have called it “Putting a Hat on a Hat.”
Luann Evans thinks the way people get jobs is writing a letter to the National Careers Department making the case to send them the key to their assigned career’s office space please and thank you bye.
You could have a college-level project researching present-day job ads in an area that leads to their desired career path, identifying what’s asked for, what’s entry-level versus steps up, what would a strong resume look like for those jobs, what do they have, what are options to improve their resume that they could actually apply for now / in the summer… but this is barely as realistic as some kid’s game where a group figures out who will be the school teacher, and the principal or the mail carrier etc just because they want to roleplay.
Don Abundio, translated:
“We were caught in a terrible ice storm in the North Atlantic, and the air was so cold…”
“All our words froze right on our lips… We had to chip them out of the captain’s mouth to get our orders…”
“Call a doctor! The Admiral’s fainted!”
“He really shouldn’t try to lie so hard at his age!”
SlyFox: Shady Shrew isn’t really trying anymore, is he?
Lockhorns: I’d enjoy more side gags like Queequeg’s Cafe. Good stuff.
Hagar the Horrible: Wearing purple, the king’s color, in the Middle Ages, Charles? You’re cruising for a bruising (because “cruising” is easier to rhyme than “quartering”).
Mother Good and Grimm: Where are they? Fort Knox for dogs? Is this a heist? A cannibalistic heist?
Man, all the good stuff happens off-panel in the comics.
Hordes of people who still depend on regular mail are wondering why they haven’t received their bills or birthday cards. The ghastly, nightmarish explanation? Outside of Grimm’s doghouse is an enormous pile of satchels labeled U.S. Mail, along with dismembered skeletons and torn blue uniforms.
An alien in a private jet flying to Guantanamo Bay is the most confusing political messaging I’ve ever seen in a comic. Do we at least know his legal status? We could ask Mr. Vindicta but he’s too busy right now using his tremendous mental powers to keep his mimosa perfectly level despite the angle of the plane’s ascent.
***
“Soylent Kibble is made of people” isn’t a horrified revelation, it’s just the ad copy.
Phantom: I’m guessing Vindicta is wearing a disguise, and when this Phantom-paced story wraps up in four or five years, he’ll be unmasked. Will it be some old enemy, possibly one disfigured by the Phantom? Or will it turn out to be Old Man Jenkins, yelling about meddling kids again?
MW: Sharon has been busy getting her [observes kids in rear seat] 12 and 13 year old boys ready for college? What?
“Yeah, dad. The whole home schooling thing has been a bust. They got a lot of catching up to do.”
HtH: Yeah, they gave ME a name, too, with promises of a continuing role as Honi’s Adorable Pony! And you see where that got me. No panel time in months. Honestly, I think they only brought me on to do that spectacular scene where I saved Christmas by pulling Santa’s sleigh!
But don’t worry, I still get a regular paycheck, with extra if I ever make an appearance. And I’m still free to do other projects. It always pays to have a good contract – I hope “Charles” has an agent.
Alice: Working on a theory that Alice makes slightly more sense,, narratively, if you can call it that, if read from right-to-left. We’ll see what happens Wednesday.
GT: Big news, everyone! Nardwar the Human Serviette now a feature character in Gil Thorp! I’m looking forward to him bringing his brand of obscure, obsessive oddball interviews to Gil and the gang!
Plugger: Pluggers’ marriages are a simmering stew of passive aggression and resentment. But we already knew that.
“What? Gitmo? Space Jesus, I swear I booked a flight to Area 51. This is what I get for buying cheap tickets on Majestic Airlines.”
Phantom – All must obey Lamm!
Phantom: I have questions.
Is “Vindicta” a lady extraterrestrial, or do greylians inflect gender differently than us Indo-Europeans?
Eric “The Nomad” Sahara is at Guantanamo. Is the purpose of Vindicta’s trip collusion, or payback?
Are private-aviation pilots really so blasé about their passengers, or is this one just drunk?
Slylock Fox-Shady presses charges against Max for assault.
Hagar the Horrible-The king is finally doing away with Hagar and his crew by poisoning them.
MW-And thus our story ends.
FC: As the CHUD pulls Jeffy down into the manhole, Dolly asks if the street has a basement.
Thel responds; “Yes, dear. Now walk faster.”
@matt w: I quit reading this arc a while back. It just sucked.
Edge City rerun on CK: “Oh, and I gave Dad my head lice.”
Crankshaft : Hasn’t he done this EXACT SAME BIT before?
Except the first time around, Lillian was angry at the customer and/or it happened to Les? And possibly there was the implication that the customer WASN’T gonna buy a book because all they had at the convention booth were the dreaded paperbacks?
*************
Dustin : not only does DustinDad’s coworker laugh WITH him, they’re a person of color and a woman. They’re really desperate to sell us on DustinDad not being a loathsome creature, aren’t they?
*************
Hagar the Horrible : I like Charles’ combo of anachronistic smoking jacket (19th century, thanks, Beau Brummel!
*) and what appears to be some kind of frayed metallic battle-skirt, like Xena and Wonder Woman wear.*I’m willing to accept I’m completely wrong on this************
Luann : More evidence that despite the fact that we’ll probably be shown silhouettes of other people in the background, Luann, Tara and Les are the only people
stupid enoughto want to be there.…Yeah, I’m saying Mrs Fogarty DOESN’T want to be there, that’s why she’s having the students review and grade each other’s homework.
*************
On the Fastrack : ….Yeah, sure, Dethany has never let Ms Trellis do horrible, idiotic evil things to her employees while being completely resigned, or worse, approving. And she totally has those multiple facial piercings she’s never drawn as having!
************
Phantom : Well, it’s unique for a SOAP OPERA newspaper comic. For a superhero/action newspaper comic, less so, and for gag-a-day… well, “A gray alien is taking a private jet to Guantanamo Bay” sounds like something you’d see in Rhymes with Orange/Six Chix/Bizarro
/Slylock Fox/Alice. And who knows, maybe during the week, we will!9 Chickweed Lane – Didn’t this character already have a fiance, an old rich guy who simply disappeared without any notice? And then she met a typically buff but wimpy male whom she married immediately, took on a sex-drenched honeymoon weekend, and now, he’s also apparently disappeared without notice? Either the cartoonist has Alzheimer’s or this chick is a black widow.
@TheDiva:
Oh, c’mon, lighten up on Les. The dude was willing to desperately injure himself in the attempt to impress her, I think they both know the real power dynamic here. Or at least I guess I hope they do? This comic sucks.
“…but only the small-town mailmen. You know, the ones that still deliver mail by foot. The city mailmen taste like gas fumes. You would think the organic, free-range rural mailmen would taste the best, but they taste like cigarettes and manure. Also, they’ve gotta be mail MEN. The mailwomen and mailnonbinaries are full of gristle for some reason.”
Ralph, who didn’t ask, smiles and nods while dissociating in the middle of Costco.
MG&G: Ha ha! Little does Grimm realize that he’s surrounded by containers of dog meat. Because he can’t read! No dog has that ability. Ha ha!
Phantom – also, a meeting scheduled for two o’clock in the morning? Jet lag from Alpha Centauri must be a bitch.
My favorite JP character has always been Sam Driver. When exactly was he muscled out of the strip by all these Sally Forth rejects?
@Uncle Lumpy: Is “Vindicta” a lady extraterrestrial, or do greylians inflect gender differently than us Indo-Europeans?
Vindicta knows gender is a social construct and they can be anything they choose.
Or maybe that’s backwards and sex is the social construct this week. I, if still allowed to use that particular pronoun, get so confused.
Props to the art team: that’s not just an alien, that’s an alien with a grudge. He’s too busy stewing in resentment to even enjoy his glass of apple juice or his expensive blank smartphone.
The food Brad Pitt fed his dog in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was “Dead Rat” flavored. It’s the little details…
MW:
Harv: “Nowadays, I only believe in in-person love. So next time you’re passing through Goleta, stop by for another quickie!”
MW:
Sharon: “Dammit. My agent got me guest-star billing. So how come I’m grayed out, no better than these walk-on child actors?”
GT: Nothing says “this is a very special serious episode” like dressing up the bad guy in a tam and kilt.
The Phantom: I assume the spaceman’s actual name has 27 syllables and is full of gutteral sounds we can’t make with our fleshy human mouths. But the fact that it means “vindicta” in English, and nobody seems to care that he’s coming to carry out a grudge, is the worst case of overlooking a dangerous alien-language translation since “To Serve Man.”
@Rover Berkeley: It is only fair. Sam usurped JP from the strip JP, so naturally he’ll be pushed aside ultimately by Charlotte.
HTH: Pretty sure this character is meant as a tribute to/ripoff of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Brandt from The Big Lebowski. PSH even had the same hair.
Phanto: Watch as he drinks a mimosa … WITH HIS MIND!!!!!!!!!!!
MG&G: In Grimm’s defense, he doesn’t look happy to share this information with Ralph. He’s as horrified as we are.
The Phantom: I’m sure there will be some boring ass explanation for this insane opener, but for now, I prefer to think that in The Phantom universe, the president of ths United States is an alien and nobody cares. President Gleep-Glorp was elected thanks to his focus on the issues that really matter to the American public, like fixing the economy or mutilating livestock in inscrutable experiments.
MW-Now lets’s go over all the signs that someone is being scammed that this story gave us.