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Hagar the Horrible, 2/24/12

It’s sad, but true: If you’re living on the windswept edge of a Norwegian fjord somewhere towards the tail end of the Viking age, a one-room hovel with a thatched roof surrounded by grass poking out of the nutrient-poor soil really does represent “do[ing] rather well for yourself.” At least you don’t live in a mud hut that melts every time it rains! At least you’re not a slave! Still, I’m a little put off by the sign, since Hagar is a known illiterate. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, since most everyone else around is illiterate too! Maybe he forced some terrified monk kidnapped from Lindisfarne to write it for him, just for the status of having writing on his property.

Six Chix, 2/24/12

Meanwhile, over in Six Chix, someone’s been murdered by a comically oversized shoe, apparently! I, uh, have no real way of dealing with this. Enjoy your weekend, everybody!

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Apartment 3-G, 2/2/12

I was going to make fun of Dan Diller for having a studio full of primitive, Eisenhower-era electronic equipment, but then I noticed that the UNIVAC I unit in the background seems to have sprouted a mechanical arm between panels one and two. “WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, FLESH-UNITS?” the vacuum-tube-controlled machine barked out, as its deadly new limb dealt out death to all biological life.

Beetle Bailey, 2/2/12

You know, much as I root with varying degrees of subtlety for legacy comics to one day realize that they’re relics and that they should just pack it all in, I admit that it can be hard to come up with a suitably dramatic ending for decades of newspaper comics entertainment. But I think we can all agree that, say, having all of your irritating characters being eaten by bears, one by one, would probably be a good showing.

Hagar the Horrible, 2/2/12

Hmm, it seems Helga has been saying for three years that she asked God to improve her husband ten years ago, which is chronologically confusing. Perhaps instead we are meant to understand that all of Hagar the Horrible takes place in some fractured, Tarantino-esque chronology, where we jump back and forth between different episodes (the castle raid, the shipwreck, etc.) in a non-linear fashion. Thus, assuming this is actually the same incident as the previous strip, my speculation in 2009 that Helga will offer the Nordic pantheon human sacrifices if they would only hear her plea seems to finally be confirmed.

Mary Worth, 2/2/12

Whoa, it looks like Nola isn’t just a sinister sexual she-predator; she’s a master of interpersonal judo as well! Rather than attempting to escape Mary’s meddling powers, she’s instead turned her opponent’s greatest strength into a weakness. All she has to do is ask for tips on bedding every man in the condo complex; Mary, having sworn the Biddy’s Oath to always offer friendly advice, will be forced to aid and abet her reign of erotic terror.

Phantom, 2/2/12

Meanwhile, the Phantom is infiltrating the lair of the Ten Tigers, a sinister Chinese crime syndicate! I’m glad to see that bloodthirsty Asian gangsters use the exact same speakerphone that I’ve seen in every conference room in every bland, low-slung suburban office building I’ve ever been in.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/16/11

When I saw the first panel of this strip, I thought, “Wow, it’s a representative of the Hootin’ Holler law enforcement apparatus who isn’t Sheriff Tait! You almost never see them!” Then in the second panel I realized why. Sheriff Tait may have come to some sort of modus vivendi with the violent criminals who inhabit his jurisdiction, but those scofflaws won’t hesitate to murder one of Tait’s employees in cold blood when he tries to do the basics of his job.

Hagar the Horrible, 1/16/11

This wizened Viking chieftain may no longer be physically fit enough to join in on his murderous clan’s annual expeditions of rape and plunder, but he still has enough social standing to demand that the raiders bring him back the sex slaves that are his right.

Six Chix, 1/16/11

I may be revealing my failure as a plugged-in consumer of popular culture here, but I’ve never actually seen the Saturday Night Live “More Cowbell” sketch. My understanding is that it involves Christopher Walken as a music producer, demanding more cowbell over the course of recording a song? I don’t really see how that relates to the scene here, which makes me suspect that the reference was a last-minute nonsensical substitution for the original text, in which this beady-eyed cat expressed its contempt for and violent intentions towards its sleeping family in terms that simply could not be published in a family newspaper.

Panel from Mary Worth, 1/16/11

Oh, and hey, is Mary Worth using her recent kidnap-foiling to demand that everyone kiss her ass even harder than usual? You’d better believe it!