First up, I had to nab this comic from another dude's blog because King Features sucks and won't let you post the strip anywhere except for their precious web site. Like anyone is going to steal Hagar the Horrible.
In any case, I hope that this guy doesn't mind too much. I just found his site today and it seems pretty cool, while I only rip comics apart once a week if I'm lucky, this guy is merciless once a week. His site is: http://joshreads.com
Anyway, this isn't about Josh reading comics, it's about me reading the comics. Let's check this piece of work out, eh? It's from February 28, but since it's Hagar the Horrible, chances are pretty good that this strip is void of any sort of humor freshness date. Chris Browne is the author and artist of the strip, and in the first panel, he pulls off his most famous trick: a close up of Hagar saying something sort of innocent.
In this case, we know that he's tied up? But why? Is he on train tracks? No, trains weren't invented yet. Is Lucky Eddie pulling a trick on him? No. Hagar is a viking, that shit doesn't happen to a viking. Maybe a little S&M? Not bloody likely.
So what is it? Browne pulls back in the next panel to reveal that Eddie and Hagar are are being burnt at the stake by a bunch of (English?) dudes. I say English because the Vikings used to beat the crap out of the British Isles (so maybe they could be Irish, Scottsmen or Welsh ... hell they could be French for all I know, but Browne usually gives Frenchmen pastry hats and curly mustaches).
Whatever your favorite serfdom nationality is, Browne wants us to suspend belief that they somehow got Hagar's (I wish I was able to do umlats over the A) address and invited him and Eddie to a cookout. And they came. Why did they do this? Who the fuck knows, Hagar has been same the character since he came out 50 years ago. Hell I've seen end tables develop more character than this guy has.
I know that I say this over and over and over again, but what makes these artists drag their characters through this crap every day. I would guess that Browne has made enough money in his life that he doesn't need to write the same story over and over and over again. While Curtis has the same eight plots, Hagar has even less: he and Eddie are marooned on an island, they get in trouble with Englishmen, the wife is always crabbing about housework or getting something, the tax man comes calling or Qvack the duck and Snert the dog are acting like people. Aside from maybe a story about his two kids (a seamingly slutty daughter and a brainy son) that's about it.
Mr. Browne, if you happen to find this blog while looking to make a golf course, let me tell you something: Just stop it. Enough with the Viking thing, go away and take Hagar with you. I promise we'll think very highly of you and I'll only talk about Hagar in whispered tones. It's time to give this mofrackie a Viking funeral.
I finished another book last week, it was called "Haunted Heritage", and it was as cheesy as it sounds. About four months ago I was bored, so I wandered into Borders looking for a book that would scare my socks off. I found this and put it on my shelf. After I had burned through all of the books I got for Christmas, I decided to read this. It wasn't bad, basically the authors, Michael Norman and Beth Scott (I don't trust people with two first names) collected lots of stories from all over North America. They are grouped into areas of the country.
So basically, the Eastern region gets a bunch of ghosts from colonial times, the south gets Civil War spooks, the west gets old West shit and the Northern and midwest get a hodge podge. Some of the stories were ok, but there were a lot of handed down legends. I don't need to read that shit, very boring.
There was one really good story about a family from Milwaukee who had sort of an Amittyville thing at their place. That one sort of freaked me out and for a night or two made taking a piss in the middle of the night sort of weird. If the collection didn't have that Milwaukee story, the book would've completely sucked, but it wasn't that bad. If you're bored, pick it up, it's an easy read.
I think that's all I'm going to write for now. I'm dead tired and want to go to bed. I'll see you some time this weekend.
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