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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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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/19/12

You know how I pedantically insist on calling this strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith,” even though original main character Barney Google hasn’t appeared in it in years, having long ago helped it transition from “Roaring Twenties City Lowlife Humor” to “Depression-Era Hillbilly Humor”? Well, hold onto your hats because Barney’s back, baby. He isn’t named here but you can tell by his goo-goo-googly eyes (and a quick Google Image search).

I was thinking that Barney’s visit to Hootin’ Holler would be a happy occasion full of mischief and hijinks, but then it occurred to me: how bad must things be in the flatlands to get a fancy fellow like Barney to flee up to this impoverished rathole? He’s probably just a few hours ahead of the roving cannibal gangs. And the rest of Sunday’s comics weren’t that much cheerier!

Panel from Slylock Fox, 2/19/12

Like, things are getting pretty grim down at the trailer park! With the nearby forest having been stripped bare (you can see one of the sad few remaining trees in the background), the local mobile home denizens have resorted to burning their own furniture for heat. Or, in Reeky’s case, other people’s furniture.

Six Chix, 2/19/12

Over in Six Chix, a child’s penchant for thoughtless violence has angered a species of advanced aliens with the capability of interstellar flight. Best-case scenario: Our conquest and enslavement. Worst-case scenario: Earth vaporized by a powerful space-based death-ray.

Curtis, 2/19/12

And in Curtis, we learn that Gunther’s spacey bonhomie masks a deep and unshakeable longing for death.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/3/12

I have to admit that I’ve had a hard time following the current Rex Morgan plot, which involves one of Rex’s patients who died and left him everything, and a mad (ex-?)wife, and a mysterious daughter who may or may not be the (ex-?)wife’s daughter too, and an equally mysterious book, but I am pretty amused by June’s seemingly very firm knowledge that whatever it was Foster Woods wrote about, it was not for little girls, not even creepily precocious ones. Despite June’s best efforts, though, Sarah has already stumbled upon the CD-ROM containing the audio-visual component of Chasing Mildred: An Erotic Multimedia Experience.

Six Chix, 2/3/12

“Don’t worry, we’ve left you this scalpel and this hypodermic as weapons. How long can you fend off the residents’ unnecessary and invasive procedures? A nationwide TV audience will be watching to find out!”