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Hagar the Horrible, 7/22/16

One fun thing about strips set in the past is to see which aspects of the strip’s world are kept accurate and which are allowed to drift into anachronisms. For instance, for this joke we have to understand that, unlike actual 10th century Norway, Hagar’s milieu includes hotels, honeymoons, room service, and brochures. But at least it doesn’t include file cabinets. Thank god. That would’ve been a bridge too far! No, Hagar and Helga just keep their treasured memories in an actual treasure chest, the way real Vikings did.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/22/16

Haha, remember earlier this week when I mentioned how hard it is for readers to reconcile the new-style Funkyverse gloom with old-style wacky hijinks? Well, I guess it was hard for the author, too! Anyway, beloved Funky Winkerbean character Darin, biological son to tragically dead Lisa, is now himself tragically dead, shot through the heart in front of his best friend by a scared, angry sailor in the midst of wacky hijinks/attempted piracy. He is survived by his loving wife, who lost her father to an act of violence years ago, and his infant son. He will be missed.

Mother Goose and Grimm and Shoe, 7/22/16

Here’s a couple syndicated newspaper comics about old, wizened dudes defiantly and somewhat derangedly sneering at their looming, inevitable death, in what is definitely not a metaphor for the medium as a whole at all, no sir!

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Judge Parker, 7/21/16

INT. – MONSTER BEVERAGE CORP. – DAY

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: You wanted to see me, sir?

CEO: What the hell is this?

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: Uh, I think it’s a … newspaper? I don’t subscribe to one myself, but…

CEO: No, this comic strip. What in the name of God are we doing in this thing?

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: Oh, that! That’s part of our big spend on native content for the quarter, sir.

CEO: So we paid for this. To reach out to … teens?

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: Yes, sir! You can see from the characters that it’s a teen-oriented strip.

CEO: …

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: I mean, just look at the characters! A multi-ethnic group, engaging in drama. If there’s one thing our research shows that teens love, it’s drama.

CEO: …

DIRECTOR OF YOUTH MARKETING AND BRAND AWARENESS: Just a group of diverse teens, in a band, participating in drama, enjoying Monster Energy beverages. Well worth the $450,000 we spent for the placement!

CEO: [presses button on desk] Security, please come to my office.

Lockhorns, 7/21/16

Man, if I knew someone who sent out paper invitations to parties instead of just creating Facebook events for them, I probably wouldn’t visit their Facebook page either. If they don’t use Facebook even for one of its most popular and useful features, then their Facebook page is probably hella boring.

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/20/16

It’s hard to remember now, but Funky Winkerbean used to be a fun, whimsical strip that included exaggerated, cartoonish elements, like Les serving as a hall monitor in a machine gun nest, which readers did not immediately assume meant that he had finally snapped and planned to gun down the whole town. The current plotline, involving Darrin and Mopey Pete raiding a cargo ship off the coast of Los Angeles to get a crate of Darrin’s favorite pens, seems to harken back to those days of yore, but mostly just makes it clear that you can never actually go home again. These strips are embedded in the current hyper-realistic, hyper-pessimistic version of Funky Winkerbean, and all I can think about while catching up on their hijinks is their inevitable rendition to Guantanamo Bay and trial before a military tribunal for violation of various Laws of the Sea.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/20/16

From the look on Samanthy Jane’s face, it seems that she alone is beginning to question Hootin’ Holler’s political order, in which citizens attempt to decipher the will of a hereditary line of dogs as the basis for government policy.

Judge Parker, 7/20/16

“No, no, let’s do the unpaved road thing! It’s a totally normal and efficient shortcut, and definitely not through the property of some crazed murderous friends of my dad who will kill everyone but Derek and then lock him up in their art cave, where only I’ll be allowed access to him!”

Mary Worth, 7/20/16

“Has your brother considered switching from booze to pills? I understand they’re extremely relaxing.”