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Hagar the Horrible, 6/8/05

1. Hagar the Horrible has decided to cheat on his wife.
2. Hagar the Horrible has decided to cheat on his wife … with Vampyra, queen of the undead!

I’m not sure which I find more disturbing. Is Hagar’s decision to stray from the marital vows he took before Odin, Freya, and all the Valkryries supposed to just serve as a setup for this joke (or “joke,” if you prefer)? Or are we going to be treated (or “treated,” if you prefer) to intermittent “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places” strips?

I’m just a simple comics reader looking for answers. I do like the composition of the second panel though: Hagar stares off into the distance, having been made a fool of, with the word balloon containing the phrase that was the agent of his humiliation hanging mockingly over his head.

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Hagar the Horrible, 5/14/05

I’m not even going to dwell on the ostensible humor content of this strip. I mean, I really think a pair of bloodthirsty Viking warriors and one of their Valkyrie-like mates could think of “something” to get the attention of the waiter that’s a little more forceful than standing on the furniture. That “something” should at a bare minimum involve the severed head of the maître d’ and a rusty pike if any of our diners want to have a hope of entering Valhalla in gore-soaked triumph.

But what I’m really worried about his the The Horribles’ domestic situation. Specifically, what kind of married couple goes out on a date to a fancy romantic restaurant and brings the husband’s dorky sidekick along? Couples in trouble, that’s what kind! Are Hagar and Helga so terrified by the prospect of staring across the table at one another with nothing to say that they’ve dragged Lucky “Third Wheel” Eddie (or maybe that should be “Lucky” “Third Wheel” Eddie) along to break up the long, painful silences with his patented brand of deliberately-missing-the-point comedy? Or maybe I’m coming at things from the wrong angle: maybe Lucky Eddie has become so well-beloved by the hardcore Hagar the Horrible audience (which, against all logic, I feel must exist somewhere, or else why does the strip persist in existing?) that every time he fails to make an appearance in the strip, angry letters pour in to King Features Syndicate. Perhaps some day, after Hagar and Helga have converted to Christianity and gone off to raise sheep in Iceland, the strip will follow the lead of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and be called Hagar the Horrible and Lucky Eddie, with decades passing between appearances of the former. It’ll be just like Joey, but (and I can’t believe I’m typing this) not as funny.

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Hagar the Horrible, 2/28/05

Okay, so I don’t claim to have any special insight into the creative process over at Hagar the Horrible Central, but I think the line of thought that led to today’s comic went something like this:

1. Come up with uproarious joke involving cannibal natives and Hagar and Lucky Eddie in a big cast-iron pot.
2. Realize that cannibal natives don’t fit into the carefully constructed and meticulously researched ninth-century AD European milieu of the strip.^*
3. Refuse to give up on joke because, I mean, you’ve already thought of it, and golf doesn’t just play itself.
4. Replace cannibal natives with random medieval-looking knights/villagers; replace pot with stakes.
5. Taste the hilarity!

*Yes, sometimes Hagar and Lucky Eddie are stranded on what appear to be tropical islands. I say they’re in the Mediterranean, off the coast of North Africa. The historical accuracy of Hagar the Horrible is not to be impugned! Feel free to impugn its humor level, though, because that’s generally very, very low.