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Shoe, 3/24/07

A thing that I know I shouldn’t get worked up about and yet do is the presence of animals in comic strips where everyone is an anthropomorphized animal. I mean, Roz’s dog is on four legs and doesn’t have humanoid hands, so I guess he’s supposed to be a non-sentient being, and I suppose its species-ist of me to just lump animals all together in one class, but it creeps me out to see a bird who owns a dog. In a world where everybody’s an animal, a hotel with a “no pets” policy is kind of like a hotel with a “no slaves” policy.

Um, not that I’d be really all in favor of a hotel with a “Yes, we love slavery!” policy or anything.

I’m curious about why exactly Roz is checking into this hotel in the first place, since I don’t think I’ve ever seen her not behind the counter of her greasy-spoon treetop diner. Perhaps she’s gotten tired of shoveling food at ingrates and has burned it down for the insurance money.

Mark Trail, 3/24/07

There’s a lot of weird crap in Mark Trail that I accept without too much mental discomfort — Mark’s unsettling lack of affect, his repeated acts of vigilante justice that go unpunished, the giant animals with word balloons coming out of inappropriate places — but I have a really hard time accepting that Mark suddenly deduced Diver Dan’s entire nefarious scheme from a single tiny screw hook, mostly because Mark has shown repeatedly that he doesn’t have the brainpower that God gave a bowling ball. Cherry, meanwhile, seems kind of horrified by the very thought that Dan might still be alive. “HE’S DEAD, YOU HEAR ME? DEAD! I WANT HIM TO STAY DEAD! IF I SEE HIM ALIVE, I WILL DROWN HIM AGAIN!”

The Lockhorns, 3/24/07

I know the central schtick of the Lockhorns is that the title characters are intolerably cruel to one another by turns, but for some reason Leroy’s smugness and Loretta’s downcast expression are especially poignant to me today. Loretta’s unisex getup may not be as sexy as what the lady in the red dress has on, but at least she’s not wearing those crippling shoes. Mr. Cardigan-Turtleneck Combo is about to find that the gal he’s been chatting up is going to fall into his lap, literally.

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They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/23/07

See, here’s the thing about the classic “send in your ideas to get them turned into a comic” comics: you never really know what’s going to happen to them after you send them in. They might get through almost entirely unfiltered, except that you end up in a vest or with a bow in your hair or something; on the other hand, you things might get so twisted around that they become completely unrecognizable. For instance, I have a hard time imagining that a “number of wives all over the U.S.A.” wrote Al Scaduto to say, “Ha! It used to be that I would harass my husband all the time for working for a living while I sat around doing nothing … but now that he’s retired, the very sight of him disgusts me! Ha! I guess I’m just a fickle, controlling shrew!” On the bright side, it looks like we’re about to get some hi-larious wife-beating action.

Mark Trail, 3/23/07

Wow, I’ve never seen Mark so depressed, so downcast, so … upset and confused. All because of one little hook from the bottom of a boat. That hook made him feel worse than he did watching his old army buddy drown and die. Maybe it’s his Rosebud, his madeleine, bringing his mind back to a past that’s now lost, a better time, when he didn’t have to live with a dumb girl and her creepy old dad and a moronic adopted son, when it was just him and his vast collection of hooks and screws, and he was happy.

Ziggy, 3/23/07

AUUUUGGGHHH ZIGGY OWNS SAILOR MOON UNDERWEAR MUST NOT VISUALIZE NOOOOOOOO

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It may not be immediately obvious, but this is post number 1,000 in the blog’s publishing system! To prove this to yourself, click here to get to the single-post version of this page and look at your address bar. I had sort of big plans of completing the long-rumored FAQ for post number 1,000, but I am completely fried from guest-blogging at Wonkette for this past week. So, instead, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you: Everyone who reads the site, who’s linked to the site from their site or from forums or Usenet, those who comment all the time, those who comment every now and again, and those who just lurk: thanks.

When I posted my very first cartoon on July 11, 2004 (that’s post number 5 rather than number 1 for various boring computer reasons), I expected to mainly entertain my family and friends. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to not only reach an audience of so many people, but also to laugh as hard at their writing on my site as (I hope) they do at mine. This blog is a huge part of my life now, and I appreciate all of you for making me feel appreciated. Here’s to the next thousand!

UPDATE: The recent post number countdown has prompted some discussion of why the numbers for the early posts are out of order. If you wan a WAY TOO DETAILED explanation, as well as a bonus link to the moment the blog changed names, check out this comment I just posted. And since I am so blog-burnt, and everyone is being so nice in the comments, I’m going to let the party roll on this post till Sunday or so. I don’t think I can emotionally handle reading the latest Foob right now.