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Hagar the Horrible, 11/8/20

Welp, I guess Hagar the Horrible is thoroughly cementing Lucky Eddie’s mermaid-focused sexuality into strip canon. In today’s installment, we learn both that Eddie has attempted without success to conform himself to society’s idea of who he should fall in love with (mammals), and also that, no matter how much Hagar’s family and warband have thrown in with the newly arrived Christian religion, they still have to deal with the occasional pagan diety, especially when they fuck said deity’s daughter.

Mark Trail, 11/8/20

Hey look, it’s Jules Rivera’s first Sunday nature strip! It looks great, fits in with the storied tradition of these Sunday strips, and absolutely includes a piss joke.

The Phantom, 11/8/20

The current Sunday Phantom plot features our hero helping out a Bangallan cop who appears to be the one person outside his inner circle who realizes that the “Man-Who-Cannot-Die” bit is obvious flim-flam, and good for him! Today we learn that the Ghost-Who-Walks not only stores the priceless historic heritage of many cultures in his non-temperature-controlled cave, but also hoards the world’s biodiversity on an island optimistically called “Isle of Eden” but where nevertheless I’m reasonably sure a certain amount of endangered-species-on-endangered-species carnivorism goes on.

Beetle Bailey, 11/8/20

I of course have always assumed that due to the weird chronological discontinuities brought about by comic book time, we’re meant to understand that Beetle walked into a recruiting office in 1951, just like he did in the strips that ran in 1951, and has stayed in the military ever since. But today’s strip seems to have updated the timeline a bit, with Beetle and Sarge (?)’s teenagerhood now having taken place in [squints] the ’80s? Sure, let’s say the ’80s. This still presumably makes Beetle the oldest living serving private in the entire U.S. Army, but at least it’s not that improbable that he’s still alive.

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Beetle Bailey, 11/7/20

I guess the joke here is that Sarge is an ape-like brute who took Beetle’s first-panel retort as an invitation to pound him into a pulp in traditional Beetle Bailey fashion. But I’d like to imagine that in fact Sarge took Beetle to a zoo or gorilla sanctuary and threw him into an enclosure to be attacked, or perhaps released a gorilla he keeps captive for just such occasions, because he is a very literal ape-like brute.

Hi and Lois, 11/7/20

Faithful readers of this blog know that I’m extremely on board with Hi and Lois reclaiming Thirsty’s original characterization as a sad, desperate alcoholic. I’m sad that the colorists of today’s strip, apparently unaware of the comics’ rich history of using alcohol-inflamed rhinopehyma as a visual gag, spent all their red-yellow gradient efforts on the fall leaves and not on Thirsty’s cross-hatched nose. Because Hi is trash-talking his neighbor and best (only?) friend well within hearing distance, I assume that Thirsty is fully passed out in that chair.

Pluggers, 11/7/20

I am dying to know the relationship between this strip and the infamous “Rhino-Man Hocks His TV” panel, not least because that appears to be the identical model of television, which was decades out of date even when Rhino-Man hocked it back in 2006. I don’t know if we’re supposed to understand that Dog-Man is superior to Rhino-Man in fixiness, the quality most valued in a plugger after down-home smugness and sexism, or if this is in fact the exact same TV, which the guy at the pawn shop gave Dog-Man at no charge just to free up some space on his shelves.

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Hey, don’t forget, I have two comedy Zoom shows coming up in November and December! Meanwhile, all Americans — nay, all people everywhere — should come to pay their respects to this week’s top comment:

“All of the crops in Hootin’ Holler failed this year because of some sort of plague, so the residents are reduced to eating the wood that they chop, yes. At first they had hopes it would at least be tastier than the rotted vegetables but alas, they are finding their bark is worse than their blight.” –Shrug

It was a hard-fought battle, though, and this week’s runners up have nothing to be ashamed of:

“TIRED: Don’t talk about bird stuff if your characters are anthropomorphic birds
WIRED: Don’t talk about COVID-19 if your characters are eating in a restaurant without a mask in sight” –Dan

“Oh Mary Beth. Knowing how to read and write ain’t gonna land you a man! Now that’s some real ed-joo-ma-cation fer ya.” –jenna

“Dennis’s idea of fun is just pulling his friend round the block in a cart, stopping occasionally to gripe about the neighbors. He’ll fit into the drudgery of adulthood perfectly.” –Schroduck

“‘It’s weird, Tracy’ is a great opening line for a Dick Tracy plot, because the answer is literally everything, and none of it is going to get acknowledged by the characters.” –pugfuggly

“What makes this case more weird than all the others? The comas? ‘Three people now exist without consciousness, trapped in a liminal state between life and death … anyway, yeah, go down and look for crime stuff.’” –Mr. A

“Given Rex’s distant personality, every appointment is a ‘remote’ appointment.” –BigTed

“The hospital? Oh, yeah, they let me go for gross incompetence three weeks ago. Did I not mention that?” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“‘Before I draw nearer to that cell phone which you hold,’ said Trail, ‘answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?’” –Peanut Gallery

“Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like if a gal coquettishly asks a fella, ‘notice anything different about me?’ and the difference he’s supposed to have noticed is the relative bulkiness of her undergarments, that flirtation’s gone off the rails a bit.” –Violet

“Elviney isn’t sure what’s worse: that Loweezy allows her physically and mentally impaired child to handle an axe so casually, or the sub-Crankshaft level of wit that passes for today’s punchline. Either way, she’s going to keep that comically exaggerated smile plastered to her face until she can find an opening in the conversation and make her escape.” –Doctor Moreau

“I cannot predict anything other than tragic results from any delicate operation in which the surgeon’s index finger is the same size as the patient’s shin.’ –seismic-2

“The question of whether a doctor should perform unnecessary surgery if a patient demands it would be difficult if the Hippocratic Oath, or even minimal medical training, had reached Hootin’ Holler. In other news, Snuffy’s going to die horribly, sliced open by a guy who found a head mirror and hospital gown on the side of the road!” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“The colorists actually did some fine work in Dustin, showing a bit of red wine through the lens of the white wine. Nice job! Sorry it was in service of such a sad joke.” –Voshkod

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