If there’s a single comic in the daily papers that regularly and accurately depicts life in Canada, I would have to say that that comic is most certainly “Hagar the Horrible.”  If I had to choose a second one though, I’d probably have to go with “For Better of for Worse.”  Really, just about everything I know about Canada, I learned from reading this strip and from my friends on the streets (yeah, I grew up in a weird neighborhood, we’d all gather around behind the school and speculate wildly on the nature of Canada, which was a good thing, because when they brought in the school nurse to explain it to us it was so completely not as awesome).  So anyways, as usual, I was reading it this morning when I came upon this:

            Now, up until the last panel, this one makes a decent amount of sense (unlike Funky Winkerbean, which is more like taking a daily odyssey into some otherworldly realm of eternal torment and suffering), but then I stopped to look at the guys eyes and just totally freaked out (really, I did, right there at the breakfast table; I snarfed in my Hot Pocket and everything).  Why, you may ask?  Because, those are not the eyes of a man suffering from sleep deprivation, those are the eyes of a man who has been tainted with some ancient and nameless evil, and since it’s nameless, I’m gonna just call it Chuck.  For you see, I spent all of five years in college, studying the ways of history, potato guns, bad winemaking, and armoring, and along the way, I saw plenty of tired people and plenty of people possessed of Chuck, the ancient and (recently) nameless evil, and lemme tell you, the two look nothing alike.

            Which means, of course, that we find ourselves in a bit of a quandary here, for clearly For Better for Worse Guy has been doing than merely pulling a few all-nighters.  At first I suspected that, like so many other Canadians, he had been dabbling in the dark arts of necromancy and maple syrup refining, but then he would almost certainly have on some kind of a robe made out of Teddy Grahams boxes or knitted from the souls of the damned (which are more alike than you may be likely to suspect), but nope, he’s wearing a cardigan, which is like the official upper body garment of Canada.  They’re like apple pie to Canadians, except they usually don’t eat them.  Usually.  Also, he’d probably have tentacles growing out of his ears and there’d be demon monkeys flying around the apartment and stuff; which there aren’t.  Indeed, it seemed as if I would be left without a hope of unraveling the case of For Better For Worse Guy’s evil Chuck eyes, but then I remembered something else I had read concerning the most unlikeliest of connections.

            There was an article in the paper today, you see, which dealt with the growing business of mining the oils sands of Alberta, which, if I recall correctly, is probably in Canada (at the very least, I’m nearly almost positive it’s not in Paraguay).  And this is of course, all sorts of controversial since this mining is destroying huge tracts of Canada’s pristine god-forsaken frozen wastelands.  Critics counter that the only other option is to get oil by grinding up baby seals, which of course brings in all sorts of extremist factions that would rather get oil by grinding up other animals such as manatees, squirrels, and Ben Affleck, but that is neither here nor there.

            For you see, while many may argue about the environmental impact of oil sand mining, few care to address the real hazard here; that of hideous and nameless evils named Chuck that have been slumbering dreamlessly since ere the Earth had cooled, awaiting the day when man in all his hubris might awaken them to devour the Earth as a fat guy devours a case of Twinkies.  Why don’t these things happen here in the America?  Simple, because the planet is a lot narrower way up at the North and South poles, so all the evil is a lot closer to the surface.  Down here in more temperate climes, you have to dig way deeper to unleash unholy hell furies upon the human race, though from time to time, some old lady planting a flower bed will hit a rich vein of evil and get transformed into some kind of gibbering harpy beast or talk show host.

            So clearly, the Power of Chuck has been released out in Alberta and, wafting o’er the countryside like the evil from a succulent and delicious waffle, has infested Sleep Impaired For Better For Worse Guy, who, unfortunately, is now probably in the wretched thrall of the underworld.  One can only hope, from an objective point of view, that this will bring about much funnier comic strips in the coming weeks, as he goes all crazy like Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters, or Winfield Scott Hancock in Gettysburg.  Either way, only time will tell.