and wonders, “I know Hagar often thrives on anachronistic stuff, but geez! Eddie having a modern pillow in camp is bad enough, but how would Hagar convince those two deer/elk/moose/reindeer to hold still for that, all night?”
I also have to ask what Rocky is doing down there on the bottom right–is one of those meese Bullwinkle?! In any case, where’s the joke?
Carl Fink submitted this Hägar the Horrible strip, commenting: “I think this is way too obvious to actually be an Arlo. Is there a category for ‘The Funnies just showed a young couple having sex in front of their neighbors, only slightly off panel’?“
There are a series of fine distinctions related to CIDU Bill’s “Arlo” designation. Carl is absolutely correct in recognizing that this comic does not qualify for an “Arlo Award“, because there isn’t any hidden wordplay, and nothing has been secretly smuggled past the syndicate’s censors; the hot action is right there (to the left of the second panel), for all of us (not) to see.
Whether or not this is “Arlo material” is a matter of subjective opinion. There is nothing objectively offensive about two pairs of underwear, and especially not with such frumpy ones as shown here. I don’t think that even Bill would have thrown this comic into his “Arlo Page” purgatory, and he was especially careful about not wanting to offend even the most sensitive of CIDU readers.
Nevertheless, this example is surprisingly risqué for a syndicated comic, and all the more so for one published by King Features, which in my experience has always been the most “sanitized” of all the syndicates. It also shows that someone else (presumably Gary Hallgren, for lack of any official information) has taken over the writing duties for “Hägar”. I cannot imagine that Dik or Chris Browne would ever have produced a comic like this one (even if their name still appears on it).
If this strip (pun intended) didn’t trigger the KF-censors, then it’s probably because the editor decided that the “sex” is indefinite and unprovable: concerned parents could theoretically explain to their curious kids that the new couple have just changed into their pajamas (to go to Hägar’s bed). The duplicity is psychotic, but that’s the way Americans behave about this subject: remember the “wardrobe malfunction“?
Mark H. submitted this Hägar strip for discussion:
… Mark comments: “This is one of the only comics I have seen where the four-fingered cartoon hands were used as part of the joke. But what if he had needed a nine-iron?“
P.S. For the purposes of this discussion, we will ignore the fact that the group appears to be playing a Three Club Challenge, so that asking for a particular iron would be pointless: each player is carrying exactly one wood, one iron, and a putter in his bag. Lucky Eddie has never had a reputation for brilliance.
Boise Ed sent this one in. If Hagar and Eddie joined the onstage table, they must have thought they were at a dinner theater. But if it were a dinner theater, the audience wouldn’t be in rows of theater seats. It looks like they went to a stage play, got there late, saw the scene involving a meal, then sat there. Even those two aren’t that dumb.
Scammers certainly are getting more creative. I got a “reimbursement” from my Jane Doe, the condo property manager, with the email Jane.Doe@propfirm.com, which was suspiciously close to her actual email of Jane.Doe@propfirm.net, and this is a person I occasionally get reimbursements from (luckily as old-school physical checks)
From Dan Piraro’s subscription newsletter, “The Naked Cartoonist“. I’ll conclude with an early collaboration with Wayno; a Bizarro cartoon about red flags in relationships. If only they were this obvious in real life!
The only joke I can fish out of this might be that we are supposed to know that the kids’ parents are sitting right there in the bar. But that might depend on us recognizing them as regular characters and knowing their families … a bit more than I can muster.
Or are the kids a crossover or tribute from another strip?? Wasn’t there a classic with “Hooligan” in the title? Oh, never mind.