April 22 (Bloomberg) -- The artists behind Hagar the Horrible, Blondie, Beetle Bailey and 43 other comic strips aligned their characters today for Earth Day, the only time the most popular cartoons have coordinated a theme besides a Sept. 11 day of reflection.

In one strip, the family and pets of Hagar, the world's most famous Viking, approach the ankle of a giant. Hagar's tough- talking wife, Helga, who could fit beneath the giant's shoe, speaks for the group.

``We'd like to talk to you about your carbon footprint,'' she says.

Like Hagar's family, the cartoonists wanted to discuss the environment with a much larger audience, said Brendan Burford, comics editor for Hearst Corp.'s King Features unit, the biggest distributor of comic strips. Burford, 29, who recruited his syndicated artists for the idea, said the comic collaboration is more to raise environmental awareness than preach policy.

``We wanted to say, `Hey, we're all in this together,''' Burford said in a telephone interview from Hearst Tower, certified as one of Manhattan's most environmentally friendly office buildings. ``I'm passionate about these issues, and I work for a company that's passionate about these issues. It's really inspiring to me when we decide to come together as a unit, the sort of impact that we can have on people.''

The 65 comics that Hearst syndicates to more than 5,000 newspapers around the world are read by millions, including 113 million people in the U.S. on Sundays alone, according to the company's Web site. New York-based Hearst has 40 percent of the comic syndication market worldwide, Burford said.

`No-Brainer'

``When they approached me, it was a no-brainer,'' said Alex Hallatt, 38, creator of ``Arctic Circle'' who's based in Lyttelton, New Zealand. ``This has been something that's been important to me since I was like seven.''

Earth Day is celebrated by almost 1 billion people at concerts, rallies and neighborhood cleanups in 174 countries, according to Earth Day Network, a group founded by the organizers of the first celebration in 1970. Climate change is finally getting attention and the time was right for cartoonists to lend their support, Hallatt said.

``It's been an amazing year, if you think about how much has changed,'' Hallatt said. ``I don't think it's cool to drive a Hummer any more.''

`Beardy-Weirdy Hippies'

In the environmentally themed ``Arctic Circle,'' three penguins move from Antarctica to the Arctic and befriend animals they meet. In today's strip, a cynical polar bear named Frank watches the sun rise with Howard, the environmentally conscious snow rabbit. Frank tells Howard that it's Earth Day and fails to get a strong reaction.

Howard puts his arm around the bear and says, ``Frank, to me every day is Earth Day.''

Hallatt, a biochemist by training, left the pharmaceutical industry nine years ago to ``get a proper job'' as a full-time cartoonist. She said Earth Day should inspire people to think about the environment and to recognize how they can affect it.

``But it's also creating the mindset that `green' is normal, it's not just beardy-weirdy hippies,'' Hallatt said.

The comics may not have much impact, said Brian Costin, assistant director of government relations at the Heartland Institute, a Chicago research group that organizes yearly conferences to challenge global warming theories.

``It's hard to get the details into an editorial cartoon,'' Costin said. ``If they're on the hyper-alarming side, it might be kind of entertaining, but it doesn't give the kind of facts that are important to making policy.''

Sept. 11 Roots

The only other time so many cartoonists organized around a theme was after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, according to Jerry Scott, a 52-year-old comic-strip writer who helped organize what he calls a ``grim'' day in comics, on America's Thanksgiving Day in 2001.

``The whole country was just so bruised and confused and scared and ripped apart,'' said Scott, the co-creator of ``Zits'' and ``Baby Blues.'' ``Comics are more a mirror of society than they are a trend-setter, and there needed to be some sort of reaction.''

``Did it work?'' Scott said. ``I don't know. Did it help? I don't know. It helped us.''

Some comic strips celebrating Earth Day have been around for 50 years or more, including Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith.

``Cartoons are so important to so many people,'' said Scott, who lives in San Luis Obispo, California, and drives a Toyota Prius. ``It's like a little visit from friends. A friend sort of brings up a subject in his own way. I don't think ours come across as preachy or lecturing.''

Not everyone follows through on good intentions, though, as Dagwood shows in today's Blondie strip.

``I think we should start by conserving energy on the home front,'' he tells Blondie. Then he falls asleep on the couch.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 22, 2008 00:01 EDT