A great joke additionally works effectively in two photos. “What’s for dinner?” Hägar the Horrible asks his matronly spouse Helga within the first image. On the similar time, she hisses again: “Exit into my vegetable backyard and see if you’ll find one thing you need!” Within the second image he timidly faucets Helga from behind – he introduced her a lifeless rabbit from the vegetable backyard.
Positive, all slightly tough and slightly flat, like so many Hägar jokes. However hundreds of thousands of individuals world wide are laughing. Many learn the often very brief tales of their each day newspaper.
The comedian character Hägar the Horrible has her fiftieth service anniversary this Saturday. On February 4, 1973, the jovial pink beard first appeared on the humor pages of American each day newspapers.
From industrial artist to comedian artist
It was invented by the US cartoonist Dik Browne (1917-1989). As “in all probability essentially the most profitable comedian debut in historical past”, Hägar has appeared in round 60 nations and greater than a dozen languages up to now, in response to the writer Ehapa Egmont.
The primary German-language album with the strips was launched in 1975. Presumably the barren world of the Northman met the zeitgeist of the oil disaster. In West Germany there was euphoria for every thing Scandinavian anyway. The primary Ikea had simply opened in 1974.
Even when the drawing model of those comics appears a bit woodcut-like, one shouldn’t underestimate Browne’s artistry. He had beforehand labored as a court docket draftsman and in promoting.
Hägar stays within the household
His most well-known design is the Chiquita banana model brand. Browne drew a personality that was half lady, half banana. At the moment it’s a woman in a banana hat and a topic of racism debates in the USA.
Dik Browne died in 1989, after which his son Chris continued to attract. For well being causes, he additionally gave his pen and horned helmet to a brand new staff in 2018, which continues the tales.
Hägar stayed true to himself. Not like the kid heroes of comics like “Peanuts” or “Calvin and Hobbes”, the Viking not has his entire life forward of him. He additionally doesn’t exude any actual curiosity or joie de vivre. He typically raises his tankard of beer in melancholy.
However he’s calm and witty. His brief dialogues along with his spouse Helga, his underexposed buddy Sven Glückspilz or his daughter Honi – whose flashing armor resembles a bustier – bear witness to life expertise and an angle that nothing can shock me anymore.
I’m glad? Am I in the best job?
The Norwegian doesn’t spend his life continuously invading England and France. Above all, he philosophizes about what strikes the general public who see him within the newspaper each morning: Am I glad? Am I in the best job? How is my marriage? When will my youngsters lastly determine on one thing? The linchpin of his worldview is commonly the bar counter.
The medieval clan with horned helmets doesn’t differ that a lot from our surroundings. Effectively, possibly it’s. For instance, with the little illnesses: Hägar comes again from his physician’s workplace in a comic book strip with out success. “The sister mentioned he was on trip.” Helga: “Effectively, nice. What do you plan to do till he’s again?’. Hägar: “She advised sleeping in your abdomen.” Three arrows are caught deep in Hägar’s again.
