The Comics Curmudgeon

Main Menu

Social Media

Archive: Hagar the Horrible

196

Somewhere in time

Post Content

Andy Capp, 7/14/25

The question of “When does Andy Capp take place” is increasingly fascinating to me — characters are on modern dating apps but also they dress … like that? … which seems pretty old-timey to me. Today’s strip in particular feels like it belongs to an age before the UK Parliament passed the Licensing Act 1988, back when alcohol could only be served at pubs from 11:30 am to 3 pm and 6:30 pm to 11 pm. This explains the reference to Andy’s “afternoon nap”; presumably he routinely stumbles home at 3 o’clock pretty soused and passes out on the couch for hours. Normally he’d be up and around to go back for the evening session, but I guess he overslept today and has missed out on hours of the precious “aimless drunkenness in the presence of non-wife people who he likes or at least whose names he knows” time that makes his life worthwhile bearable.

Hagar the Horrible, 7/14/25

Ha ha, that got a little dark! Anyway, speaking of placing comics in context, you know I’ve long been fascinated by when exactly Hagar the Horrible takes place over the evolution of Viking culture and society, but the where matters as well. I’m reasonably sure it’s been made explicit in-strip that Hagar lives in Norway, which means that his world faces out to the North Atlantic. His Swedish cousins have established extensive trading routes through the Russian river systems with the Byzantines and Abbasids, so they have access to the delicious spices of the east, but Hagar’s Norse compatriots haven’t gone far enough south of Greenland to discover genus Capsicum, which means that in his mind “hot wings” are just wings that are currently or recently on fire. Sad!

Hi and Lois, 7/14/25

When Hi referred to “your honey-do list,” I briefly thought that we were turning a traditional sexist cliché on its head here, but nope! It’s just a joke about Hi feeling wounded and unappreciated — or in other words, “classic late-era Hi and Lois,” which around here we do respect.

Comments are closed

I personally am on Team Snert

Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 6/11/25

I find this strip genuinely funny, and particularly love the expressions on Hagar and Eddie’s faces in the second panel. Obviously they consider themselves to have landed in a suboptimal situation, babysitting-wise. But could they have prevented this? Maybe, but they’re damned if they can figure out how.

Mary Worth, 6/11/25

To be fair, Dawn, Wilbur didn’t “believe” Willa so much as “walked in on Belle trying to eat her.” I’m sure that if he had actually seen her trying to poison you he … probably would’ve done something about it? Right? Probably? Anyway, I like how they’re both vaguely smiling here. They can joke about all this, now that it’s over, Belle has been safely taken home by her brother, and the two of them are driving away from Charterstone and never coming back because explaining what happened to anyone they know is far too embarrassing a prospect to even consider. Better to make a clean break and start over in a new state with all new identities.

Garfield, 6/11/25

Today, in a very special Garfield, Odie fully grasps the concept of death for the first time. He’s not a fan!

Comments are closed

Crime and/or punishment

Post Content

Hagar the Horrible, 5/19/25

I really appreciate how chill Hagar is about his own prosecution here. Based on the wigs, he’s probably being tried for his crimes in England, which was particularly powerless to stop Viking raids during this period, so presumably he’s sticking around out of curiosity to see what the verdict will be before his warrior band overwhelms the inadequate local Saxon levies and frees him by killing everyone in the courtroom.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/19/25

Snuffy Smith has been doing a storyline where Barney Google has reappeared and is practicing law with no more legal training than his big city smarts, and apparently he’s winning case after case. This just goes to show the importance of an adversarial legal system: after decades of townsfolk being forced to appear in court without any legal representation, the town’s law enforcement community has lost all ability to make even the basic arguments necessary to convict obvious lawbreakers like Snuffy Smith.

Hi and Lois, 5/19/25

Look at the big smiles on Hi and Lois’s faces! They’re positively giddy at the prospect of watching 2024’s feel-good Oscar fare like Anora and The Brutalist. C’mon, Chip, join in on the fun!