Herman Hedning

"Herman Hedning" (lit. Herman the Heathen but called "Marwin Meathead" in English editions) is a humorous comic strip from Sweden drawn and written by Jonas Darnell.

The Story

The comic has three main protagonists, Herman Hedning (Marwin Meathead), Gammelman (Oldhead) and Lilleman (Shorthead).

Marwin Meathead is fat, sadistic, greedy, lazy and self-important… well, he possesses all the bad qualities you can possibly find in a thinking human being. Always wearing his helmet and carrying a weapon, a wooden club with a huge nail right through it. it is revealed to be made of the corewood of an Arch-oak. he is unstoppable in plotting against his two buddies - Oldhead and Shorthead.

Shorthead is often the target for Marwin’s evil plans - he is a kind, naive, nature-loving soul who wants to be everybody’s friend. But do not be deceived by his sweet appearance, he is able to give as good as he gets and drives Marwin insane.

Oldhead with his glasses and beard, grumpy and blasé, is quite happy to simply sit back and watch Marwin and Shorthead beating the living daylights out of each other. He often does this from his laboratory, where he invents various dooms-day machines and more or less necessary gadgets to reform the world.

History

Herman Hedning first appeared in 1988 in "Fantomen" (the Swedish edition of The Phantom).Since then Jonas Darnell has written over 700 strips, and a number of lengthier stories, typically 8-10 pages. About 680 has been translated into English. The first of thirteen albums was released in 1990, and the first magazine in 1998. Since 1998 there have been 57 issues, or eight per year, except for 1998 and 1999, with two and six issues respectively.

Popularity

Herman Hedning is published in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and is a steady seller, outlasting many of its contemporaries.

Recurring characters

The Creator -A parody of the Christian god. Posing a large beard and a anonymous black line over his eyes, he is the one who is "Incredibly responsible of everything on earth". He uses a laptop called "The holy Laptop" to create things. He is very keen on experimenting, such as replacing all eatable life forms and vegetables on earth with robots and plastic. He is also always searching of ways to gather believers.

The devil -or the red Airhead as Marwin calls him, he is red, has horns, a long tail, and, from time to time, big wings. He is evil and loves everything evil. He is by far the most recurring villain in the comics. He often comes with plans to mess with people, although he often fails miserably. These attempts involves trying to pollute the world on a massive scale, trying to heat the world up to an incredible level, giving the Holy Laptop a Panic-anxiety-virus. He is shown to have a vast storage of "spareparts, such as heads, and gallbladders. One of the latter is currently worn by Marwin as pants. it is shown in the episode "Fan i Helvete" that the devil created the tick to pest Marwin. the tick almost instantly died from drinking Marwins blood.

Klustero - Klustero is a small, Pink, Nerd with Zits and Nerdy glasses. He is the god of the Potassium-based lifeforms of an unnamed planet/galaxy. This experiment failed utterly and rendered Klustero unemployed. Noticing all the other gods struggling to keep their creations in check, he constructed, with an old Ham-sandwich and brains from his failed Potassium-creatures, the first Holy Laptop with the operating system CP (creator professional). Distributing this to the other gods in various incarnations. Also a Holy Server was built, with Klusteo as Head of Server maintenance. Dazzled by fantastic graphics and interactive icons, the gods were unaware that, through remote controlling software, Klustero could access and create galaxies, suns etc, in his own image. The gods found out eventually (Since the entire universe soon was looking like Klustero) and stopped him in the middle of creating a cubistic spiral galaxy made out of whipped cheese. After taking his remote-control gizmo (probably after immense and incredible use of unnecessary violence) the gods sealed Kluster in his server-room and kicked it into a black hole. The Gizmo was given to the most senile God creator, the one who created Earth) who buried it deep in a planet, planet Earth. He eventually teams up with Urdatorn, or The first computer, a enemy of Marwin and Co. How he managed to do so is unknown since, as he says "we dont have time to explainl". He/They is defeated by Shortheads special breed of earth-worms, who had grown to monstrous size due to Marwin unintentionally giving them a "Lard-and Steroid-casserole". they return in the following episode wich has the theme Online games such as WoW and Runescape. he is again beaten and, in true Supervillain-fashion, vows revenge on the world.

Urdatorn -A computer originally built by Oldhead. He strikes a deal with Shorthead to get rid of Marwin and after a gruesome fight chases Marwin to the edge of a cliff. Marwin then tricks him to not kill him by illuminating the paradox of Urdatorn, A wonder of Artificial Intelligence, the complete opposite of Marwin, a not-so-great wonder of unartificial unintelligence, being unable to use brute force since he is obviously above that. While debating on this, Marwin kicks Urdatorn from the cliff and destroying him. he appears again in a later episode as a more robotic form, trying to steal the Holy Laptop this time he is stopped by Marwin, who had been turned into a bird for trying to steal the Laptop, takes a shit on the keyboard. he then teams up with Klustero. How he managed to do so is unknown since he "Didn´t have the energy to tell". he/They is defeated by Shortheads special breed of earth-worms, who had grown to monstrous size due to Marwin unintentionally giving them a "Lard-and Steroid-casserole". they return in the following episode wich has the theme Online games such as WoW and Runescape. he is again beaten and, in true Supervillain-fashion, vows revenge on the world.

The apocalypse -the master of Chaos, the real-estate manager of destruction, crusher of mountains, swallower of oceans and kicker of small white dogs. He is skinny, dry and wears a horned helmet. He resides on the moon, which is made completely of lard) with four centaurs known as the four roadies of the apocalypse. They work backstage to him, and Iron maiden, and Uggla. In his first appearance, the apocalypse creates a lard-powered chaos-generator (this does not impress Marwin since he has been that his whole life) Marwin destroys it though. He participates in Marwins Roleplaying games as well as Hunting competition. later he receives the chessboard of war.a recurring joke is Marwin being unable of saying his name correctly, always calling him apokalypson or apkalops (lit. Monkey-casserole). to date Marwin has only called The apocalypse by his true name once, and that by accident. it is unknown if this unnability is stupidity or arrogance from marwin.

External links

* [http://www.hermanhedning.com/eng Official homepage] (in English)