Imagine being less alert that Dagwood. Shameful
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Blondie, 5/24/26
Blondie over its multidecade run has chronicled America’s increasing suburbanization and corresponding car dependence. Back in the ’50s, Dagwood took public transit to work; in 2026, he carpools with three other people, which honestly probably puts him in the bottom 10% in terms of CO2 production for his neighborhood cohort. I would’ve made that guess even before seeing today’s strip, in which he wanders around his all-residential subdivision and we learn that his cohort is so sedentary that it’s spending the weekend walking slowly, not walking at all, and unable to maintain consciousness despite drinking a big cup of coffee in the middle of the day.
Hagar the Horrible, 5/24/26
At first I thought this guy in the blue smock had sexually harassed a serving woman and been murdered for it. But now that I look at it more closely, he’s just getting stomped on by a hot shield maiden and looks overjoyed about it, which probably indicates that this was his plan all along.
47 replies to “Imagine being less alert that Dagwood. Shameful”
HtH:
“She’s a real battle-axe!”
Blondie, 5/24/26: “Imagine being less alert THAT Dagwood.” Imagine being too arrogant to stoop to (wait for it) PR00FREADING!
HtH:
Lizzie Dottir took a sword
And sent Sven running to a fjord.
— Ancient Norse rhyme
Not to be a yenta or anything, but shouldn’t that be “than Dagwood” as opposed to “that Dagwood”? And, yes, I have no life.
HtH:
“Who wants a bowl of cold potato soup? — my Viking stove is on the fritz!”
I did not know “moonlight” means “can transform into a hot, superheroic alter ego instantly, like Sailor Moon”.
Dustin-Ah yes the dieting through starvation plan.
Blondie-We all know what ‘walk’ is a euphemism for. Blondie is trying to whore Dagwood out to the neighborhood men and sadly failing at it.
Slylock Fox-Next morning Slylock has an omelette.
Slylock Fox-“Slylock, we’re animals who walk and talk and wear clothes. Standard animal behavior has flown out the window.”
MW-Wilbur then sneaks up behind Dawn. “Are you stalking an ex? ‘Cause him headed off to stalk one of mine.”
RMMD-Meanwhile all these out of town restaurant customers are staying at better hotels.
FC-Jeffy, if you want to weigh more weigh yourself with Dolly.
Hi and Lois-And there is the hot neighbor who never closes her curtains undressing.
Judging by his expression in the bottom left panel, “his plan all along” was to look up the hot shield maiden’s skirt.
Blondie: How is it that Daisy took what’s apparently her first walk of the day without peeing on anything, pooping on anything, or even sniffing anything? She did stare at all of Dagwood’s neighbors awfully intently, though — maybe as a partially colorblind dog, she has a hard time telling them apart in their identical “lazy suburban guy” polo shirts.
Hagar: Cold potato soup? Oh, you mean vichyssoise — clearly the Vikings have been raiding the French for their recipes as well as their valuables. Where they got the idea for modern-style home mail delivery, though, I have no idea.
A little passive aggressive on Blondie’s part to not ask Dagwood herself rather than wait for him to ask her after his friend’s refusal.
Believe It or Not: Did this Capybara look at porn before taking his long shower? That would seem to be an unfair advantage in this competition.
HtH:
“One of our group blew right past me as I was hitchhiking and shouted, ‘I can’t drive 55!’ ”
“What miscreant fellow tribesman of ours did that to you, Lucky Eddie?”
” ‘Sammy,’ Hagar!”
HtH – And before this, she had served in a commando unit!
RMMD – a real failure not to have this customer add “hyuk hyuk” to every line.
HtH: Lucky Eddie’s sick mother is in a home for the criminally insane.
RMMD: Amazing amount of detail in the orange-haired (and orange-eyed?) customer. I have to assume this is a real person who won some sort of contest to appear in the strip — there has to be some reason an artist would devote that much effort to a throwaway character, while drawing all the regulars as expressionless ovals.
HtH – Josh I think you missed the point of the WBAHLLC gang. The guy is not just overjoyed about getting stomped on by a hot shield maiden. He’s overjoyed because he’s looking right up her dress.
RMMD: “And can I have YOUR autograph? I never thought I’d meet Howdy Doody!”
MW: You thought things were dark before, Tommy. Now, you’ve caught Dawn’s eye. Buckle up, buttercup!
Mary Worth: As a Southern Californian myself, I’m well aware that palm trees tend to drop huge sharp-edged leaves and entire heavy fronds on the ground, especially during high winds. Which is why it’s weird that Charterstone has one leaning directly over the walkway, so the debris could land on anyone passing by. Was that Mary’s idea? It’s almost as bad as, say, planting vegetables just a few feet from the building, where they’re likely to attract squirrels, rats, gophers, rabbits, and raccoons. Did Mary actually get approval from the condo board for this project? I have a feeling no one but her actually wanted to “supplement their pantries” by fertilizing tomato gardens right outside the windows of their million-dollar condos — which just goes to show how influential the Great and Powerful Mary is around these parts.
There are plenty of anachronism here: hitchhiking, the postal system, sick leave, etc. The worst one is the presence of potato soup before the Columbian exchange
I think Dagwood is not being sarcastic. Look how huge those yards are and how distant the houses are from other houses! Walking to three front doors and returning must be a not small contributions to your daily step count!
@76VDubber:
That was my first thought, too. He was getting a preview glimpse of the gates of Heaven before he died.
You might think that Vikings went woke on workplace sexual harassment, but actually in an honour society without a clear monopoly on violence, defending your reputation on the tip of the sword was essential. Sorry blonde viking, you wish you would only get a stern talk from HR!
HTH: This is one of the most perverse sexually suggestive family newspaper comics ever, but you should have expected that when the first panel has the name “Dik Browne”. Apparently Hägar is trying to emulate the Diddy “Freak Off” parties. You don’t want to know what she’s going to do with that huge phallic sword.
JP: Ahhhh yes… It had been more than a few days since we were treated to two pissyfaced women yelling at each other in this strip. The universe is in balance once more.
Luann: I guess the Evansii are picking up tips from Batiuk on how to draw a strip without a discernable joke. In the hands of a better writer, the punchline would be a literal punch as Les decks Gunther and throws him out of the garden shed.
DT: So, not one of these businesses had private security who could take a potshot at one of these drones? And all their employees are early bird eager beavers who got to work early and are thus not trapped in the massive traffic jams?
RMMD: Holy shit, it’s Arch Hall Jr.! To quote the MST3K crew: EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!
@Ettorre: Isn’t potato soup just “Chowder” now?
Memorial weekend is for memories!
– CS: Ed longs for love, or is it agility?
– ZITS: Mom remembers grabbing a feel
– 6 CHX: may not be the best album ever as some claimed, but Pet Sounds DID rock.
Hägar the Horrible: Clearly Lizzie’s regular job is the 1am shift at the Oslo Waffle House. The guy’s lucky she didn’t smother, scatter, and cover him.
@Ettorre:
#21. BLONDIE: And as a coffee drinker, all those neighborly visis must be “brisk” for poor Dag.
Hagar the Horrible: Good ol’ Lucky Eddie. He’s got a suitcase, he’s got a mailbox, he’s got a lawn. So close to being a regular guy, but he still runs around (or in this case, hitchhikes around) with a goddam funnel on his head.
I’m confused about the worldbuilding in Hagar the Horrible. Does Lucky Eddie usually serve dinner at Hagar’s house? Do these three miscellaneous vikings usually eat there? Does he serve a communal meal for the raiding band? Does Helga attend those? And why is the shield maiden named for John the Baptist’s mother?
Blondie: I’m going to assume the deal breaker here isn’t a walk so much as it is a walk with Dagwood. I mean, what would they even talk about? The ingredients of the last stupidly large sandwich he ingested? The advantages of sleeping on a couch vs. in his office chair?
HtH: The blonde sexual harasser was really into it when Lizzie was stepping on him and he could get an upskirt shot, but now that she’s moved on to spanking him with her blade he’s less enthusiastic. Too bad the Vikings didn’t have safe words.
@Activist:
CS: Ed longs for love, or is it agility?
That’s not Crankshaft, that’s Eugene, the man who would have become Lucy McKenzie’s husband had her evil twin Lillian not meddled in their affairs.
…I don’t know why this strip brought back a character whose only connection to the rest of the cast is a character the strip killed off DECADES ago, and who is easily confused with another character if presented without context or explanation.
Curtis I do *not* want to know the Frahm rule for adolescent males wearing jeans thankyouverymuch, no followups please
MW Forget the implied communal kitchen phrasing of the “Charterstone pantries” (are they prepping for a hantavirus-pandemic-apocalypse isolation from the world??) I am trying to catalog the gardening insanities here. We have walking-path trellises that… don’t follow any path. With small planting boxes at the feet, too small for patches of more than a few plants, so… it’s all crops that go up the trellises, no bushy potato lumps or spreads of carrots or lettuce? And those trellises are *way* taller than the supports needed for tomatoes (actually, if a tomato needs any, it should be a cage going around the whole plant from what I’ve seen). That leaves what? Some squash could go partway up… maybe peas or runner beans could actually use the trellises. Hope the Charterstone folks like gas-inducing meals.
@BigTed:
Mary Worth is the condo board.
A few days ago, Pluggers were able to use smart phones to enlarge the instructions on their frozen dinners. Today they can’t figure out how to do that to read the instructions on their life-saving medications. That…kind of tracks, actually.
BLONDIE: I guess the Blondie team has been “inspired” by Capcom’s Street Fighter outout because this is the “Ultra Super Special Turbo Special Championship Edition EX Plus” version of an old joke that’s been featured here before. (The issue back then was the ridiculousness of Dagwood suddenly gaving more than one friend to make the joke “work”.)
Pluggers: Pluggers are too stupid to read the instructions on their life-saving prescription labels printed in decent-sized type in plain English language that tell them the exact dosage, timing, and other important information, such as “with meals” or “not with grapefruit.” Reading the package insert with the tiny printing will not give them the information they need to sustain their lives. Stupid.
Are pluggers just gigantic animal-beast versions of Luann deGroot?
RMMD:
“Worth it to meet Lorna Starr. Let me put my name in with the manager so that we can be called when our table is ready. Sir? — put me down for two people, for ‘Picha.’ ‘Al O. Picha’ !”
@Anonymous:
#33. CS: thanks for the correction!
C’shaft: Tom Batiuk reminds you that one day you to will grow old, your physical strength will fail, and younger people will laugh at you when it does.
Dustin: I’m starting to think the problem is that the Kudliks have opposing eating disorders.
JP: “It’s my right to be irrationally panicked and paranoid!”
MW: If Dawn decides Tommy has been replaced by aliens as a vanguard for extraterrestrial invasion, I will forgive the ridiculous set-up.
Phantom: “We believe you are the hero from the sea our ancients foretold.”
“Sorry, but despite my deep and culturally implausible respect for your culture, I have to get back to my home country.”
“We’ve made you a really cool skull throne.”
“SOLD!”
RMMD: GAAAAAAH! It’s like someone turned young Ron Howard into an evil ventriloquist dummy!
Is this the first time we’ve seen someone actively get killed on-panel in Hagar the Horrible? That’s…kind of a milestone, right?
Blondie – Are Blondie’s boobs gonna go bob-bob-bobbing along? No? Yeah, well I’m busy….
HtH – Um…OK…that cold potato soup part…I guess that’s pretty funny….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
HAGAR THE HORRIBLE: You guys, this isn’t as bad it sounds. The “shield maiden” was just retrieving her sword from the last guy she slaughtered (probably from paying her similar “compliments.”)
See, and y’all thought it was gross and weird.
As we see from the enthusiastic smile Haggar has had planted on his face for the entire comic, the real freaky stuff is not going to happen until after the last panel, when Haggard demands that Lizzie tells the Vikings that they’re being “naughty” after decapitating his colleague.
Wary Morth:
Ladies and gentlemen! Presenting:
Dusk Weston, international spy.
______________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
Do Betty and Veronica know that Archie there has a crush on Mud and washed up overweight Hollywood starlets?
______________________________________
Flylock Socks:
So now poor Daphne will be dragged off to prison and her eggs will be orphaned. Great going, Sly!
Hagar the Horrible: It used to be Lucky Eddie’s job to sword-spank the troops.
@matt w:
Well…yeah. Normally the guy would directing lurid, vulgar come-ons at him and slapping his ass. (Why do you think he’s so eager to leave town to “visit his sick mother”?)