# Who the hell is enjoying Hagar the Horrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-strips\ **Created:** [December 7, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720 "2015-12-07T17:46:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/41 "2015-12-08T13:11:27Z")
Mary Worth continues to be hilarious day after day. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/42 "2015-12-08T14:06:02Z")
From Don Markstein’s _Toonopedia_: > [@](#): > > Hagar was a success from the very start. It debuted from King Features Syndicate on Feb. 4, 1973, in an impressive 136 newspapers, and within two years was in over 600. It now appears in almost 2,000 papers throughout the world, and has been translated into over a dozen languages — including, of course, Swedish, as no less than 58 of Sweden’s daily papers carry the strip about their ancient countryman. Like most “instant” successes, Hagar was preceded by a lot of hard work in which tha cartoonist honed his skills. Browne’s earlier work includes Ginny the Jeep )a World War II cartoon like Hank Ketcham’s Half Hitch) and The Tracy Twins (which appeared in Boy’s Life magazine alongside Rocky Stoneaxe). > **[Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Hagar the Horrible](http://www.toonopedia.com/hagar.htm)** > > Hypertext encyclopedia of comics and animation To my utter surprise, Hagar has been used to sell products. There’s also a Hagar-themed store at Island of Adventure in Florida, with a huge Hagar out front. There was even an animated TV special (how did I miss that? ) in 1989. See the Wikipedia page for details > **[Hägar the Horrible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4gar_the_Horrible)** > > Hägar the Horrible is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared on February 4, 1973 (in Sunday papers) and the next day in daily newspapers, and was an immediate success. Following Browne's retirement in 1988, his son Chris Browne (May 16, 1952–February 5, 2023) continued the strip until his own death, with artwork by Gary Hallgren. As of 2010\[update\], Hägar is distributed to "Hagar the ... ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/43 "2015-12-08T14:29:23Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Until I saw that second line I was sure you were being snarky. My newspaper (which I no longer read) added it a few years ago. I saw very little funny about it, and got really tired of the succession of strips that boiled down to “elaborate setup for not very funny or interesting pun followed by the breaking of the fourth wall via threats to the cartoonist”…once would have been more than sufficient! To be fair. It must be hard to be “on” day after day, for decades. Not excusing lazy writing and art, understand, but at some point it must, will become hard to come up with fresh new jokes within the strip’s standard (specific) format. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/44 "2015-12-08T16:28:37Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Mary Worth continues to be hilarious day after day. From the [National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody](https://www.google.com/search?q=helen+helper&espv=2&biw=1293&bih=678&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiessje1czJAhVCKGMKHd0dBowQsAQIKg#imgrc=S9qf-GT4GWGouM%3A): Which also contains “The Amazing Squirrel-Man” and “Horrid The Hun.” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/45 "2015-12-08T16:33:26Z")
^awesome, possum! ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/46 "2015-12-08T16:50:48Z")
I think part of the problem is that once you read a few years of any comic strip on a daily basis you have probably seen 99 percent of the material. I know I USED to enjoy reading comic strips. Now I rarely do and I suspect it is for the above mentioned reason. Some people don’t mind hearing the same jokes over and over. Others not so much. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/47 "2015-12-08T17:28:17Z")
I like Luann, Get Fuzzy, Pearls, and Mutts - Mutts has a special place in my heart, often beautiful artwork and touching storylines. The Dinette Set by Julie Larson had its last panel published end of November. I am devastated. I hate-read this thing for years, but perversely loved it so much. I feel like putting on sweatpants, a Members Only jacket, picking up some imitation Ding Dongs at the Dollar Dump, and later going out to The Trough Buffet , making inane conversation with my husband and sister. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/48 "2015-12-08T21:52:46Z")
Any new guy trying to break into comic strips is never going to try to get a strip printed on dead trees that are thrown out every day. Anyone with any talent or soul is going to be writing a web comic. The only comics I ever try to see are xkcd, penny arcade, and tom the dancing bug. Does Tom the Dancing bug ever get printed in newspapers? Maybe alternative papers? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/49 "2015-12-08T22:18:47Z")
I remember seeing TTDB in alternative newspapers in the early 90’s. It might still be there, but I don’t keep up with that crowd as much as I used to. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/50 "2015-12-09T00:01:46Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **Mallard Fillmore** has been a national disgrace for years. The artist is a wife-beating alcoholic, which I would say could explain the consistent anger, execrable art, and awful writing, but I have a feeling that a lot of comic strip creators were probably wife-beating alcoholics back in the days when wife-beating alcoholics were not frowned upon socially, and THEY managed to turn out good comics. I knew about the alcoholic part, not the wife beating part. But that’s not why I hate him. This is the guy who found nothing funny in the entire Bush administration except when Bush proposes something reasonable about immigration. And for whom Donald Trump and the entire primary campaign does not exist. So he’s a coward also. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/51 "2015-12-09T00:26:25Z")
The best Mallard Fillmore cartoon ever was the [fake one](http://feldmanthecat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mallard-stewart.jpg) in Jon Stewart’s book America (The Book). Tinsley actually got [pissy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard_Fillmore#Parody_in_America_.28The_Book.29) about that. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/52 "2015-12-09T02:29:17Z")
Dorothy: What’s so funny? Blanche: Oh, Marmaduke. Look at how he drives that car. Ha ha ha! I love my comics. Every day, Marmaduke and Apartment 3-G. Dorothy: I haven’t read Apartment 3-G since…1961. Blanche: Oh, well, let me catch you up. It’s later the same day… ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/53 "2015-12-09T06:13:13Z")
Now that I’ve got you all here, can somebody tell me how “Hagar” is pronounced? Without going all International Phonetic Alphabet on me. Thanks! Also, do you suppose there’s an opening for an unfunny, badly drawn, third party strip? For those who just want an alternative to Doonesbury and Mallard. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/54 "2015-12-09T12:07:55Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Now that I’ve got you all here, can somebody tell me how “Hagar” is pronounced? Without going all International Phonetic Alphabet on me. Thanks! > > Also, do you suppose there’s an opening for an unfunny, badly drawn, third party strip? For those who just want an alternative to Doonesbury and Mallard. According to various sources (including Wikipedia), Browne pronounced it HAY-gar. It’s what his sons started calling him after he grew the beard. Thus is a comic strip born (I’ve seen photos of Browne before the beard. More to the point, I’ve seen a papier-mache sculpture siome other cartoonists made of him pre-beard. They used a light bulb for the nose, and the chin is virtually on-existent. I have to conclude that he grew the beard in self-defense to distract attention from his prominent nose and receding chin. Thus was the image born, thus the name, and, almost inevitably, the comic strip. We have Hagar the Horrible today because of a papier mache caricature.) ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/55 "2015-12-09T16:40:07Z")
Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G are two I NEVER understood. I assume they are mini-soap operas, brought to the readers in a few panels a day, over the course of years, but I could never dedicate myself to read them for a few months to see if I liked them. Somebody must, but I have never met anyone who admits to it. I remember one called “Dondi” (I think) that I hung with for a while, but I realized I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow for my cartoon story to continue at 3 or 4 panels at a time. When Calvin and Hobbes ended, so did my interest in any cartoon. Today’s offerings just don’t appeal to me. I suspect that is a product of age that we all go through at some point. (Except, of course, for the superhero fan boys like Kevin Smith who can follow those characters and enjoy them for life.) I am kind of glad in a way that Calvin and Hobbes ended. My affection for that cartoon has never changed, whereas many others that continued on became weak, hollow shells of their golden years. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/56 "2015-12-09T16:49:57Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > Until I saw that second line I was sure you were being snarky. My newspaper (which I no longer read) added it a few years ago. I saw very little funny about it, and got really tired of the succession of strips that boiled down to “elaborate setup for not very funny or interesting pun followed by the breaking of the fourth wall via threats to the cartoonist”…once would have been more than sufficient! Too bad they can’t print my idea: > [@](#): > > A project I keep meaning to get around to but may never: a cut and paste three-panel Pearls Before Swine strip: > > Panel #1- Goat: “Hey Pig, I heard you joined a theater group; you’re acting now?” Pig: “Not yet, I have to apprentice as a stagehand first. Right now I’m only crew-rated.” > > Panel #2- Pig: “But someday soon I hope to be cast-rated.” > > Panel #3: Stephan Pastis is tied up and hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Comic Strip Censor is scowling and holding a baseball bat. Insert witty rejoinder. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/57 "2015-12-09T16:56:56Z")
I know some Scandinavian-Americans who like Hagar the Horrible, inauthentic hat and all. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/58 "2015-12-09T16:58:10Z")
Anyway, about Hagar: every so often even the dullest strips like _ **Garfield** _ will get a smirk out of me and occasionally a real belly-laugh. I liked this recent Hagar: > **[Hagar The Horrible](https://comicskingdom.com/hagar-the-horrible)** > > Hagar The Horrible Sunday, May 7, 2023 Hagar is going to be **SOOO** disappointed 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/59 "2015-12-09T17:44:00Z")
Back in its hayday, much of the humor in Hagar the Horrible revolved around Hagar drinking too much, and the trouble he got into while drunk. Eventually, civic-minded types pushed the artist to drop the booze-related humor. And the strip became much less funny as a result. It was around the same time that Beetle Bailey cleaned up its act. Sarge stopped swearing and stopped beating up Beetle, and the General stopped being a dirty old man. And, like Hagar, there really was little reason to read the strip after that. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720/60 "2015-12-09T17:56:11Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > [Been done.](http://oglaf.com/heterogeneous/) I put a spoiler around this so it fits with the two click rule. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-the-hell-is-enjoying-hagar-the-horrible/739720.md?page=4)