Herman (comic strip)

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Herman was a daily single panel comic strip written and drawn by Jim Unger. It was syndicated from 1975 continuously through 1992, when Unger retired. In 1997, Herman was returned to syndication with reprints of classic strips and occasional new material mixed in.

The eponymous Herman is actually anybody within the confines of the strip - a man, a woman, a child, any animal, or even an extraterrestrial. All characters are rendered in Unger's unique style as hulking, beetle-browed figures with pronounced noses and jaws, and often sport comically understated facial expressions.

[edit] Themes

While there is no apparent continuity between comics, there are several recurring themes throughout the strip:

• Married life: Wife: "What would you rate me as? A 10? 9? 8? 7? 6? 5? 4, 3? (pause) Not 2!" Husband: "Keep going."
• Bad cooking: A woman says to her husband, "I made you a meat pie and the dog ate it," to which the husband replies, "I'll miss the dog."
• Strange neighbors: A television comes crashing through the wall. Outside, a man yells "You missed!"
• The elderly: "There's an elephant on TV and Grandma's throwing peanuts at it!"
• Animals: One penguin to another. "We'd have arrived earlier, but our iceberg hit a ship."
• Children in school: "Don't drag your fingernails on the chalkboard, Niles." a teacher with shattered glasses and standing-up hair says.
• Intelligent babies: A man steps into the baby's room with a bottle. "It's about time! Another five minutes and I'd have died of thirst!"
• Restaurants: A waiter dumps the customer's food on the tablecloth. "Terribly sorry about this, but we're short of plates."
• Life in prison: Two prisoners have been caught cutting the bars from their cell window. "We found it quite stuffy in here, warden."
• Art: A painting depicts a single half-circle at the bottom of the canvas: "This one's called 'Here Comes the Sun.'"
• Hunting and fishing: A hunter with the rifle realizes he has just blown the landing gear off of an airborne 747.
• People with bizarre ailments or injuries: A man in the hospital has a surgical scar that covers the perimeter of his torso. "It took us a while to find your appendix," the doctor explains.
• Encounters with extraterrestrial life: A UFO has been pulled over for speeding. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse, buddy!"
• Ordinary people thrust into bizarre situations: A man on a modern-day park bench encounters a Viking, who asks "Is the war still on?"
• Being overweight: An overweight man stands on a bathroom scale, and asks his wife, "What do you mean the needle's broken off?"
• Mispronounced words: A sheriff's deputy brings the sheriff a cat. The sheriff says "I said 'Round up a POSSE!'."
• Courts: A judge does not know that the defendant he is speaking to is a plywood cutout. "You have been found guilty of forgery."
• Strange inventions: A man has a giant shower head over his house. "I get a good deal on fire insurance."

Several collections of the comic strip were printed.

[edit] Awards

Unger received the National Cartoonist Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1982 and 1987 for his work on the strip.

An earlier strip entitled "Herman", created by Clyde Lamb, ran from 1950 through 1966. It had no relation to Unger's strip.

[edit] References

Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.

[edit] External links

• Herman on comics.com
• NCS Awards