Mostly Walker-Browne Friday
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Hi and Lois, 6/26/26
I dunno, maybe there’s something to this whole “boys are falling behind” thing, because it seems like Chip’s girlfriend of the moment has secured some kind of high-paying girlboss email job for the summer while he’s just standing there staring at her like an idiot.
Hagar the Horrible, 6/26/26
Before today it never even occurred to me that I might have to contemplate the question “How would I feel about Hagar expressing even the slightest hint of sexual desire?” because the idea that he might ever be horny just didn’t seem like something that was on the table. This is what happens when you let Brad and Toni fuck in the shower! The answer to the question is “uncomfortable,” for the record.
Beetle Bailey, 6/26/26
At least I don’t ever have to worry about General Halftrack expressing erotic feelings for his wife. He loathes her and can only bear being her husband by drinking heavily!
Crankshaft, 6/26/26
Speaking of drunk and depressing, Harry Dinkle has been learning about his long-dead and distant father by reading a diary he found in that storage unit. Yesterday’s strip was about how Dinkle Senior, a bandleader, once wandered past a TV store where they were showing Elvis on the display units and he realized that the world was passing him by before he ever managed to become a big deal, and it was pretty grim, but I decided not to post it here because I thought “You know what, we can do better.” And boy was I right!
85 replies to “Mostly Walker-Browne Friday”
Does a horny Hagar remove his horned helmet?
Wait, Josh is surprised Hagar is horny?! Did he see his helmet?!
@Dmsilev: synchronicity!
“The spaghetti is very good. You will admit that I was right to do slave raids in Southern Italy!”
H&L: There have been a lot of comics lately about seniors getting caught up by online romance scams. Mary Worth did it, Mark Trail did it, Mary Worth did it again. But until, we’ve never seen the other side of the coin. You thought all those young women in bikinis messaging to suggest bitcoin investment opportunities were AI? Well, some still have some respect for the craft and do it the old-fashioned way.
FC: Now floss your camel toe, Dolly.
H&L: There was a joke that I wanted to make about what that girl’s job might be that would illicit that kind of reaction from Chip but then I remembered that they’re both like 16, and I don’t feel well…
HtH: I really like Helga’s expression in the second panel as she contemplates whether a beard full of tomato sauce and stray noodle bits would already kill the mood or not.
BB: I feel like this is one panel short of being a Cialis ad.
DT: Uh, isn’t that exactly what a normal VPN does? Mask your location and therefore your identity?
Luann: ‘And by that, I mean I saw your hideous, scorpion-like hoo-hoo! No way I’m getting anywhere near that! Let’s just adopt Shannon instead already!’
Luann2: Also let’s just bask in B-wad’s Wilbur-like oblivious-ness here. “Yer into that astrology nonsense? I never knew that! You’re my Nice Guy Trophy Wife, you don’t have *interests* outside of my orbit!!’
RMMD: June knows the score. (heh!) Not only are they miming, the clearly can afford one of those new-fangled ‘woke’ violins that only use a fraction of the wood so as to save the precious rainforest! Why, I’ll bet those strings aren’t even made from genuine catgut!
Phantom: Again, I’m imagining Schmelon Schmusk’s little monologue is being heard by No-Mad No-Problem as just a bunch of ‘mmphh mmphh!’ sounds because his stupid mask lacks a mouth hole.
CS: Annnd THERE it is! Dinkle Sr. was a stinko drunk! That’s why he could never hit the big time, that ol’ Demon Rum! Tomorrow (or Saturday at the latest) we’re going to find out he died in a car wreck with a half-dozen bottles of rotgut whiskey sloshing around inside. Don’t it just make you want go live in the past, when everything was better??
H&L: Chip is standing there dumbfounded because his girlfriend can only get wifi on a stretch of beach that’s been abandoned as a superfund site.
Dangit, I referenced well-known male enhancement drug in one of my snarks, and now my comment has gone to moderation limbo. I never learn…
Hi and Lois:
“It sure is fun to sit on the beach and look in the direction opposite from where the beach is.”
@Bob Tice: And also not face the person I ostensibly came to the beach to be with!
Hagar:
“You’ll like this garlic — it’s from the Frankish king Clove-is!”
Crankshaft:
Yep, this is why I read the comics. To get a good-natured, frothy laugh to start my day.
Beetle Bailey:
“I had some help. And as you can see from this martini glass I’m holding, her name was Olive!”
The barman asks the General how did he manage to do 30 years of marriage. “I had some help”, he answers. The wording might imply some sentimental crap (“my wife and I are a team”) but the drawing of the raised Martini glass reveals the brutally honest answer (“I was drunk most of the time”). No notes, unironically perfect strip!
“Crankshaft” says that alcoholism might ruin the relationship with your children, but “Beetle Bailey” argues that being drunk might save your marriage! In a time of political polarisation, it’s good that the funnies page hosts a healthy debate!
H&L: Do the youth these days want a patch of untanned thigh skin where their laptop sits? Or where their legs cross? Can’t say I see the appeal.
RMMD: June improves the lives of the needy by having them frogmarched to the city limits.
H&L: I can’t tell if Chip is gobsmacked by her curvaceousness or if he’s still processing the word “job.”
BB: Equality, people, equality! There’s no reason to believe that MRS Gen Halftrack isn’t drowning her sorrows over her long and pointless union. Let’s see her at the bar!
MW: Hey, I have an idea! Why not shift Dawn’s story line to, “Dawn seeks self-improvement by getting (and flubbing) an actual job?” Endless plot possibilities!
H&L: The sun looks like a huge, gaping asshole and this girl wants to be made browner. Thank god there are only two panels.
Excuse me, Harry Dinkle, are you complaining that a musician in the big band era might have used alcohol too much?! Do you even know this culture?!
@The Quiet Man: CS: Annnd THERE it is!
And after only four weeks! I guess it was important that we see the exact chain of events that led from Eugene’s move to Harry reading his father’s diary.
BB – How did the General end up on the Love Boat talking to Isaac? Did he go AWOL?
H&L: I have so many questions. How old is Chip’s girlfriend? What qualifications does she have for any kind of job that you can do remotely? Can minors work remotely? If she’s not a minor, how old is Chip, what is the age of consent in their state, and is there a Romeo and Juliet exception?
The potential legal ramifications here are staggering, ranging from potential violation of multiple labor laws to Chip’s girlfriend being placed on a registry.
“I am came here at the beach not to swim, play and have fun, but to do my computer job, instead of doing it in an office or café with AC and power outlets. Combining two things and ruining both is the kind of skill that it is appreciated in today’s job market”
Beaten Bailey:
Barman: “That’ll teach me to never ask the old coot anything again.”
Luann: Me: So, doing the math, nine months, it will be an Easter Baby….
Toni/Bwad: Water Baby! Water Sign! Yay, Cancer!
Me: Either they want a premmie to sync up with the Zodiacal Sign, or …
backs out into shrubbery
Mark Trail: Does Cherry have a hair worm or an actual worm hanging off her head?
@Tom: Girlchipfriend was recruited by an organised scam network to post fake reviews. They don’t give a damn how old she is.
@Little Guy:
An Easter baby that’s water sign is a PISCES.
…Hey, was it ever established before that Toni’s birthday is late october-early november before? …Has Bwad ever celebrated Toni’s birthday before?
Crankshaft:
You know how Crankshaft’s whole deal was that is was the “fun” Funkyverse strip, which in practice meant it was about a sour old man mangling the English language in unfunny ways instead of everyone dying of cancer and smirking even though they’re very depressed? Well, I think Batiuk has belatedly realized that the former isn’t enough for him. He needs the grim shit, not just the annoying shit. If that means his “fun” strip has to have a “punchline” where a child is well aware that his father is an alcoholic, so be it. He’s gotta have his fix.
Batiuk has put enough distance behind the Funky goes to AA storyline, time to dip into a fresh alcoholic story arc (hopefully in flashbacks).
Wrecks Moregone:
“Mummy, they could still really need the money for food and medicine, and couldn’t find any other way to earn it.”
“Not. Our. Problem. Let them go work for a pig butchering scam centre or as waitresses in the Glewood Motel.”
@Baja Gaijin: the alien brain parasite Anh used to have on Questionable Content until Faye shaved it off a couple of weeks ago finally found a new home.
Crankshaft – “I could smell the booze on your breath when you’d hug me goodbye. It was robust and fruity with notes of vanilla, oregano, and leather.”
Don Abundio, translated:
“How’s it going with Don Abundio?”
“Not so good”
“You mean I’m winning the bet?”
“So far his head’s only hit the wall four times!”
OK, Anh actually looks pretty good with her head shaved.
Pity she’s got such an awful personality.
“Hagar, will you be eating these spaghetti with a knife?!”
“Yeah sorry. I raided Italy for the food, but I should have raided the Byzantine Empire for the forks!”
Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey:
Much like The Flintstones, Hagar the Horrible started out depicting a sitcom-style, The Honeymooners-inspired marriage in which the two parties have a largely antagonistic relationship, which was part of popular culture’s general mid-20th-century mission to depict marriage as a living hell, for some reason. But in these enlightened, post-third-wave-feminism times, Hagar’s relationship with his wife Helga has softened considerably, and in today’s strip he’s not only expressing sexual and romantic interest in his wife, but doing so in a way that makes it clear that it’s okay if she doesn’t feel like reciprocating right now, and if she does he’s doing to make decisions so that she enjoys it too. Of course, I approve of the change as a matter of principle, but I still have to admire Beetle Bailey‘s stubborn dedication to the old ways.
Didn’t realize there was branding in Viking-era Scandinavia. “EGH Garlic — For When You Have No Plans to Get Laid!”
RMMD-But who is she?
MW-Mary is talking to the wrong Weston about changing.
Beetle Bailey-All thanks to The General’s therapist Sergi Smirnoff.
@Vulpes: Without no-fault divorce, marriage risked becoming inescapable hell. These days it is not clear why the Lockhorns do not divorce so, as you suggest, we must deduce that they get something out of all the strife. Something sexual
BeeBail: I’d assumed Gen. Halftrack was in his 70s, but that would mean he married a loathsome woman he absolutely loathes in his 40s, and I just don’t think anybody would do that, so I’m rolling his age back to his mid-50s and chalking his haggard appearance, repeated incompetence, chronic underperformance, constant sexual harassment, and complete indifference to military readiness to his proud and loud alcoholism.
DennMen: This one isn’t so much menacing as it is poignant. Dennis’ parents can’t sleep. The stress of life, adulthood, parenting, the *gestures broadly* everything, have completely wrecked their peace of mind and therefore the peace of Dennis’ home (it also doesn’t help that has his dad, canonically, is an asshole), so he seeks wisdom from the only other adult he feels close enough to for such solace, who is unfortunately, also an asshole.
GilTh: YES! KAZ SUMMER INSANITY “THE HANGOVER PART IV” BEGINS NOW
HiLo: Joke’s her her. That angry red sun? That’s the early stages of a nova.
RexMor: Jesus Christ, June, either give them money to help them out or don’t give them money (for fear that they’ll spend it on drugs and alcohol or whatever). They’re clearly beggars, not buskers, so this “Well, she’s not really playing her instrument and such deception indicates her lack of merit” is just you looking for excuses to ignore human suffering by reassuring yourself that she somehow deserves it.
Hagar: No matter what you might have heard about the brutality of Vikings, Hagar is civilized enough to let his wife choose either doggy or missionary style.
Beetle Bailey: Personally, I think it’s a nice touch to depict Gen. Halftrack’s balls pickled and placed in his glass. It’s a good editorial decision!
Q: Why did a 99-year-old man have to move into a new home?
A: Because a choir director’s father was an alcoholic.
That’s the story, apparently.
Hägar the Horrible: “What kind of mood will you be in after dinner?” he asks, while she stares at the large knife he’s brandishing. Vikings gonna Viking, broad trading networks bringing them Italian cuisine or no.
@Ettorre: I firmly believe that the Lockhorns marriage is just one long, complicated form of verbal S&M. Just be glad we don’t see their lives off panel. Leroy on all fours in a gimp mask, a plate of food in front of him, while Loretta, in dominatrix garb, brandishes a whip and yells “EAT IT! I SAID EAT IT YOU CUR! THEN TELL MOMMY HOW YUMMY HER COOKING IS!”
That look on what we can see of Chip’s face is that of a teenage boy who was hoping to experience an anime beach episode of his own. Suck it, otaku, this girl has her future to think of – a high paying career and melanoma.
***
Are comic characters aware that they don’t have to be married if they’re so miserable it drives them to drink? You can get a divorce and try to find someone who wants to have garlic breath sex in the shower with you.
***
Back when Doonesbury was a joke strip, did any one of you think that Harry Dinkle was the way he was because of his alcoholic father? Not so funny now, was it? [Sounds of off-screen chatter] My apologies, I was just reminded that it wasn’t particularly funny then either.
Dammit, Crankshaft! You used to have integrity! While the Funkyverse descended around you into introspective depression and grinding misery, you kept it real with awful pseudoam-puns and contrived malapropism. But now? They’ve done you dirty, Crankshaft, they’re doing a Barney Google on you, and you’re not even fighting it! Rage, O Crankshaft, rage against the dying of the feeble-pun-related light!
@Ukranazi Stepan: Or she’s “Trixie” #546
@Ettorre: The Lockhorns seem to have an (very odd) healtby relationship. They go out and do things together all the time.
-They go golfing and play tennis (to insult each-other)
-They go to the theater and the opera (to insult each-other)
-They host parties and invite all of their neighbours (whom they haven’t alienated) as well as attend parties (to insult each-other)
-They even once went on an Italian Cruise (again, to insult each-other)
Name a couple who genuinely love each-other, that spends that much time doing stuff like this with each-other.
(Yesterday’s) Marvin: I just realized! Instead of reading “Poop Baby’s Full Diaper,” we could have been reading “Karate Baby Adventures,” and I, for one, am outraged!
Hagar! You’re eating spaghetti with a knife! Ain’t no one gonna make sweet love to you when you’re making AI-ass errors like that!
Chix (sic):
J’Accuse
J’Accuse
J’Accuse!
J’Accuse!!!!
You win
“I could smell it on your breath. And to think you were a band leader and a brigadier general. Even your neighbors, Hi and Lois, knew it.”
@Voshkod:
“It’s why I shed no tears when that savage norse barbarian warlord killed you in battle. I bet he was a better man to his family; the kind that makes sure his breath is minty fresh when he kisses his wife (avoiding liquor and garlic during big meals, in particular).”
Crankshaft: “I could smell it on your breath…as you were leaving for a gig”.
This will turn into a covered-up drunk driving accident, won’t it?
BG&SS: Snuffy, just turn it into a potluck! Ergo, instead of one thief with dozens of chickens, Sheriff will have to arrest dozens of thieves with one chicken each.
Pluggers dreamt of being cartoonists but gave it up when they discovered there was already a syndicated comic whose creator gets paid for not writing his material.
Luann: Their assignation started in late June. The baby will be an Aries. If they’d only started several days before, it could have been a Pisces.
Dustin: They’re drinking already. Can’t they just open another one at home and get shot down on a dating site? It will save them ever so much time.
Blondie: If we’d ever seen Dagwood drive this car before, I’d like this strip more.
MW: Has Mary ever declared that someone actually needs psych meds?
BG&SS: Today’s comic has been brought to you by the Rural Electricifcation Administration, giving farm folk another reason to hate socialism and government for 90 years. While not being able to live without it.
@ValdVin:
That’s Gasoline Alley‘s crossover with Snuffy Smith. Yes, my brain synapses connect “chicken thief” with BG&SS.
H&L – Only Fans is a lofty calling….
Hth – His blade shrinks in panel two. That says a lot….
BB – Hello vodka my old friend….
Crank – Heroin is the thing daddio…joy juice is so out’a step….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Hi and Lois: She came out to a deserted beach dragging a chair, a laptop, and a bottle of sunscreen. Sounds pretty dumb. Until you compare it to the guy who just brought shorts and a towel.
Chip’s girlfriend got roped into an MLM scheme.
@Vulpes: You mean childless marriage was depicted as a living hell. Remember, for every Honeymooners there was a ‘Father Knows Best’ or ‘Donna Reed Show’ where the Big, Broad-Shouldered Husband kissed the Little Woman on his way to ‘The Office’ while the precocious kiddies got into shenanigans that required the BBSH to give them a talking to in the third act resulting in lessons learned all around.
Crankshaft-And the moral of the story is that every single one of Batiuk’s characters have had horrible lives and are horrible people because of it.
@ValdVin:
On Crankshaft, and Larry Dinkle’s fate : hmmm…. “Larry Dinkle died of a heart attack during intermission, but nobody at the event he was playing was told anything” didn’t make a lot of sense, while “Larry Dinkle, during intermission, f****ed off in a drunk stupor, and couldn’t be found until a week later, where he was found dead in a ditch” tracks better, yeah.
Hi and Lois-Sorry, Chip, but you’re going to have to pay to see those pics on her OnlyFans page.
Crankshaft-Larry Dinkle was liked but he wasn’t well liked.
Crankshaft-Tom Batiuk’s “Death of a Bandleader”
Beatup Bailey: Does Halftrack always order is martini with two boobs?
Low and Hi-less: Sure she got a great job on the beach,but her right foot is melting.
@Ettorre: These days it is not clear why the Lockhorns do not divorce so, as you suggest, we must deduce that they get something out of all the strife.
There are few happier marriages on the comics page than the Lockhorns. Only Arlo and Janis, and the McLellans in WtB come to mind.
The Lockhorns have made insult comedy their love language, but they go to parties together, museums together, travel the world together, and sustain their marital diss track through it all.
Now take the Half-Track marriage. Amos will do anything to avoid work, but will use work to avoid his home life. And Golf. And Martinis at the bar. That’s your typical comic strip marriage.
@The Quiet Man:
RMMD: musician here. That’s one of those electric violins. They look awful and I hate them.
@Ettorre: They were all hepped up on goofballs!
Ripley’s Believe It Or Screw You! : In March 2025 A Florida Man made sweet sweet love to his car during an ice storm.
@brendancalling: What an age we live in, I’d never heard of that. That explains the amp, and why these plucky orphans are faking it. I’m guessing these electric violins sound absolutely atrocious.
@Anonymous, Luann: Easter next year is March 28th, so it would be Aries, unless she delivers earlier in the month.
Hi And Lois: This feels like yet another “miserable, out-of-touch old person whining about the younger people”, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it’s even complaining about, though I’m sure whatever it is is pretty hypocritical. My best guess is that Chip is supposed to be devastated by his girlfriend(?) having a job for some reason.
Hagar The Horrible: Word of advice for the artist; if two characters are supposed to be horny for each other, make sure draw them BOTH as being horny. Otherwise you just make the whole thing weird and uncomfortable.
Crankshaft: So, like, I feel as if the whole point of this story (term used very generously) is supposed to be Harry getting new perspective on his distant father that helps him appreciate the man a little more and maybe posthumously mend their relationship. But if that’s the intent, Batiuk is botching it at levels I didn’t even think possible. Every single thing we’ve learned about Dinkle Sr. just makes him look like more and more of a pathetic failure of a man who Harry had every reason to despise. Like, here we are with Harry reflecting on how his father was a raging alcoholic over his career problems and we’re supposed to be feeling, what? Sympathy for Senior when he’s earned absolutely none? Impressed by Senior neglecting his family for his dream when he shouldn’t have started a family at all if he was going to prioritize other things? For God’s sake, Batiuk, get it together if it’s even possible for you.
Blondie The Neighborhood Bumstead: Buy the former Millionaire’s son a steak @hungryheifer.
@The Quiet Man: @brendancalling: What an age we live in, I’d never heard of that. That explains the amp, and why these plucky orphans are faking it. I’m guessing these electric violins sound absolutely atrocious.
_________________________________________
Jack Benny has raised from the dead and gone electric!
@72 brendancalling: I thought it was just crappy artwork.
@The Quiet Man: They have their uses. Acoustic instruments can sometimes struggle with feedback. Violins can be delicate, and a solid body is more durable.
My problem is the aesthetics. For some reason, I can tolerate wacky shapes on electric guitars, but I want violins and mandolins to look like they’re supposed to.
H & L: That girl is gonna have some weird tan lines on her legs with the laptop balanced there.
@Peanut Gallery:
Rich Corinthian leather. (Shout out to Ricardo Montalban)
Curtis: Goodness, who could have predicted this shocking twist? Literally everyone? Okay, then.
FG: I like that all Vultan’s dialogue is in bold. I was going to imagine it being read by Brian Blessed anyway, but it’s nice to know Schkade and I are on the same page there.
JP: I’ve been wondering for a while now if it’s weird that Sophie was living in Norway’s Santa Claus Town and went home for Christmas. And I’ve decided it’s probably not, because she strikes me as exactly the sort of person who’d be all “Of course, it’s unbearable during tourist season!” after living somewhere for three months.
OTF: That’s your “official job description” is it, Deth? That’s what Ms Trellis put in your contract? Really?
Phantom: I’m not sure “I want you to do this for me. If you attempt it and fail, I’ll wash my hands of the whole business and you can go back to jail, assuming you’re still alive” is quite the sales pitch Marvin the Martian thinks it is.
RMMD: Since Rex Morgan MD does not do moral dilemmas, I assume June is about to conclude that, if they’re prepared to lie about playing the music, they’d probably also lie about needing medicine, and be completely correct.
@brendancalling: I’ve always thought that part of the problem is a violin needs a chinrest. So you can get electric guitars that are pointy or minimalist or whatever, because they’re just hanging from a strap, but electric violins have to be almost violin-shaped, or you can’t hold them properly.
Growing up in the UK in the 90s, I associated the electric violin with Nigel Kennedy — the big 90s push of “Kids! Classical music isn’t just for posh old people! It can also be played by guys with spiked hair and Mockney accents who call their instrument a fiddle!” (He also had a Strad, which he called his old fiddle.)