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Hagar the Horrible, 7/14/23

Wait, did we know that Hagar was bald under his omnipresent trademark horny hat? I did some deep research (went to my advanced archives search page, looked up “bald” for Hagar the Horrible strips, didn’t find any mention of it, looked up “hat” and “head” but there were too many hits and I didn’t feel like going through them all) and have come to the conclusion that I at least did not. Someone is probably going to drop a triumphant link to me talking about it in 2013 or so in the comments, so it’ll be interesting to see if Past Me agrees with Present Me, because Present Me kinda hates it. At least we won’t have to look at bald Hagar very much in the future, because those trolls are very much going to kill him, right? And eat him? Maybe not in that order?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/14/23

Say what you will about Rex Morgan, M.D., but it does a pretty good job with facial expressions, in my opinion! Like, take Rex in panel two — I feel like this is nicely capturing the two contradictory impulses rising within him: “Ha, do these rubes think I would ever attend a social event at their home, they’re even dumber than they look” and “If next week they’re having yet another drunken rager and they haven’t invited me, I am 100% calling the cops.”

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Mary Worth, 7/13/23

Do you think this warehouse is the same one where the famed Operation H-Town shootout went down way back in ought-nine? You know, the one where Scott, the heroic cop who was in love with Dr. Jeff’s sad sack daughter Adrian, got shot and ended up in a coma, which finally inspired her to accept his marriage proposal, but then he regained consciousness so she had to go through with it and eventually they sort of vanished from the strip? Anyway, my point is that there can’t be that many crime warehouses in a small community like Santa Royale, so it’s probably the same one or pretty close to it, and you can understand why these police officers, remembering the tragic night when they almost lost one of their own, are surprised to find a bunch of non-dead dogs in there. I guess this town really is gentrifying nicely!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/13/23

“Say, you know, one way to deal with that problem would be if your kid suffered some kind of physical trauma that resulted in amnesia, just a whole chunk of your child’s mind and experience wiped conveniently away. Probably the sort of thing that should be done under the supervision of a medical professional, if you want to go that route. My fees are not very reasonable, but you’ve already said that you’re rich, so I assume that’s fine.”

Blondie, 7/13/23

Does it work in those Hallmark movies? Hallmark movies, a genre that stereotypically panders to the fantasies of its female audience? And in those movies, men get out of chores by complimenting their wives’ physical appearances? And that works, you say? Hmm. Hmm.

Zits, 7/13/23

“He’s been a teenager since this comic debuted 26 years ago! Why would he start aging now? It doesn’t add up!”

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Judge Parker, 7/11/23

Josh, the world cries out with one voice, how’s Sam and Abbey’s sex vacation going? Well, they just had just gotten out of cell phone coverage range when someone intentionally (?) rammed their car and ran off, leaving an unconscious toddler behind, who Sam and Abbey decided to carry with them on the miles-long walk to their cabin, where a landline awaited them. So, uh, the sex vacation was not going great, in other words! But good news: the little tyke woke up and, understandably, immediately started screaming and fleeing into the woods away from the total strangers who were taking her who knows where. So … sex vacation is back on? More on this story as it develops.

Gil Thorp, 7/11/23

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy (with Gil’s entire family no-shows at his big awards ceremony), the second time as farce (Gil’s kids there to cheer him on but Mimi off somewhere else, presumably banging her golf coach).

Mary Worth, 7/11/23

Now, you might think the implication here is that Mary was only one of many people who reported ambiguous but suspicious dog park adjacent behavior to the police, but let’s look at the facts. Mary is a careful and methodical person and she doesn’t pop a bunch of popcorn in order to gloatingly eat it in front of the 6 o’clock news on the off chance that one phone call did the trick. No, I think that just off panel, there are pile of burner phones and an electronic voice-altering gadget that helped her make sure that justice was done.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/23

Sorry to have misspoken last week: Rex and June’s loutish neighbor lost an eye to his post-July 4th fireworks, not a hand, and the whole family was too drunk to drive themselves to the hospital so Rex volunteered to do it. Anyway, Travis is “turning that frown upside down” by thinking about how understaffed emergency rooms are and all the delicious pills they probably just leave out unattended!

Dustin, 7/11/23

Man, this sort of dead-eyed literalism is more menacing than anything Dennis ever came up with. I guess it’s what you’d expect from a child who’s decided to make exactly one friend, and that friend is an adult, and that adult is Dustin.