Comics and Cartoons

Woody Allen

Dik Browne's "Hägar, the Horrible"

Dik Browne and sons Chris (l) and Bob (r)
© Dik Browne

This cartoon series by Dik Browne tells the big and small problems, that a Viking faces from day to day:

His wife Helga complains, when Hägar returns after three months on sea and walks across her freshly polished floor with dirty feet.
His daughter Honi rejects a proposal of marriage by a prince because his armour is dirty (she only wants a prince in shiny armour).
His son Hamlet rather wants to be a dentist than a Viking.
His best friend and assistant Lucky Eddie has more luck than brains, but his luck is non-existent.

Browne does not spare us sideblows at our modern society and shows the funny side of the battle of sexes

If you like to see a sample - or if you already know Hägar and want to enjoy him, too - can see a daily changing cartoon at

www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/hagar/about.htm

Gary Larson's "The Far Side"

It was pure chance that we discovered the cartoons of Gary Larson, but in the meantime he became our all-time-favourite. With his series "The Far Side" he succeeds to turn up-side-down the way we humans see things and by changing the point of view the small and big human weaknesses are shown with great detail. Alas, he forbid the publication of his cartoon on the net and although there are still sites that do so, we want to honour his wish and do not set links to these sites.

It is a pity, that Gary Larson has retired and that there will not be any new "The Far Side" books in the foreseeable future, but maybe the "call of the ink" will be strong enough one day to draw him back.

Here an overview of the series (all published by Andrews and McMeel, Inc., Kansas City)

"The Far Side" (ISBN 0 8362 1200 2)
"Beyond the Far Side" (ISBN 0 8362 1149 9)
"In Search of the Far Side" (ISBN 0 8362 2060 9)
"Bride of the Far Side" (ISBN 0 7088 3596 1)
"Valley of the Far Side" (ISBN 0 8362 2067 6)
"It came from the Far Side" (ISBN 0 7088 4192 9)
"Hound of the Far Side" (ISBN 0 8362 2087 0)
"The Far Side Observer" (ISBN 0 8362 2098 6)
"Night of the Crash-Test Dummies" (ISBN 0 8362 2049 8)
"Wildlife Preserves" (ISBN 0 7088 4558 4)

"The Prehistory of the Far Side" (ISBN 0 7515 0419 X)

"Wiener Dog Art" (ISBN 0 8362 1865 5)
"Unnatural Selection" (ISBN 0 7088 5007 3)
"Cows of our Planet" (ISBN 0 8362 1701 2)
"The Chickens are Restless" (ISBN 0 7515 0828 4)
"The Curse of Madame 'C'" (ISBN 0 8362 1763 2)
"Last Chapter and Worse" (ISBN 0 8362 2131 1)

"There's a Hair in my Dirt: A Worm's Story" (ISBN 0 0601 9104 X)

There are several "The Far Side Gallery" collections, but they only contain cartoons of other books.

Jim Toomey's "Sherman's Lagoon"

What we said about Hägar is also valid for the shark Sherman, his wife Megan, his friend Filmore the turtle and all the other "Lagoonies" conceived by Jim Toomey. All-day-situations shown with pointed wit. Different to Hägar the humour of this series is rather black for a great part of the cartoons ("How is the fishermen-chowder?" - "Too few fishermen in it.") and to the "hairless beach-ape" it is made clear that there is no "top of evolution" but only a closed food chain.

For the small hunger for Sherman there is the official site

www.slagoon.com/

which presents a new cartoon each day, an archive, a screen-saver and more.

Uli Stein

The cartoons of Uli Stein are full of black humour, burlesque and loveable characters. He belies the cliché of the German with no humour and again and again makes us laugh with his wit and ideas.

No computer fan can do without his work "Das Uli Stein Notebook".(The Uli Stein notebook) in the daily fight against bugs and bluescreens. It has an "6.5 inch flat screen with 16.5 million colours, offers 285 MB of memory and is resistant to viruses (no crashes), user-friendly and independent from the mains supply". The renowned computer magazine c't (www.heise.de/ct/) tested it in issue 19/99, page 91, and came to the conclusion: "The Uli Stein notebook is ideal ... not only for computer experts, but also for the interested layman and beginner." The Uli Stein notebook was published by the Lappan Verlag, Oldenburg (ISBN 3 8908 2879 5) and is available in book stores (The language is German - mostly at least.)

Many of Uli Stein's popular cartoons you can find on his official site

www.ulistein.de

MAD

The satirical magazine MAD has already been idolised a long time ago. Since several decades if offers complete nonsense, parodies of all possible hyped movies, TV serials etc. and of course a lot of funny drawings. Our favourite authors are Sergie Aragonés (and his "Marginals"), Dave Berg (who is an excellent watcher of the way people are) and Don Martin (a master of black humour).

But not only the magazine, also the TV show MAD TV makes us laugh again and again.

More about the MAD magazines and MAD TV you can find on the official sites:

www.madmag.com/
www.madmag.de/
www.madtv.com/

Sev Trek

Only per chance we were pointed out to a site with wonderful parodies of well-known science fiction and mystery series. Especially "Sev Trek" finally answers questions from our favourite SF-series, that we always wondered about. Die adventures of the captains Quirk, Pickhard, Schidzo, Gainweight and Archaic bring back what has almost vanished from the original: the humour. And the best is: Everyone can participate, with ideas for new parodies or punch-lines. Strongly recommended for fans or people who just like to laugh.

cartoons.sev.com.au/Sev-Space/Sev-Trek/

Martin Perscheid

And another German lines up to improve the reputation of German humour - and in our opinion he succeeds. The cartoons of Martin Perscheid are partly very grotesque - and remind us of one of his idols: Gary Larson. From light amusement to very black wit there is everything within the range of Perscheid's cartoons. No every-day-situation is spared and he always surprises us with new ideas - like the child's rattle made from downy feathers for noise-troubled parents.

Periodically, "Perscheid's Abgründe" ("Perscheid's abyss") at

portale.web.de/Boulevard/Comics/Perscheid/

are expanded by new cartoons. The official site is at

www.martin-perscheid.de/

All pictures on this page are © and TM by their respective owners and used without permission. No infringement of copyright is intended, but should it occur please let me know and I remove the offending material immediately.

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