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Hi all! Just one item of note for you this week before I launch into the COTW: A faithful reader sent me a link to a funny Zits-related blog, Better Zits. For everyone who loves Zits, or hates it!

And now, this week’s top comic:

“Things you don’t want to hear your girlfriend say: ‘Someone found love on the Internet? Sounds interesting! Tell me more!’ Unless of course your girlfriend is Mary Worth. Then you present her with a long list of URLs and hope for the best.” –Amateur

And the many hilarious runners up!

“Patti’s revenge will be hiding Ken’s razor blade. Facial hair is like a duck call for fists.” –Mischief Maker

“I’ve written a haiku about today’s Momma: Momma and her son/ Slathering diaper ointment/ Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarf.” –Matmaduke

“I’ve heard enough about getting off on Tommie’s feet, Gary! That will DO! Though … I must say I’m curious how there could be a ‘wrong’ one?” –migellito

“Actually, I’m fairly certain that Bryce’s ‘You’re all about to get a lot better’ is merely the preamble to his speech about the benefits of performance enhancing drugs.” –AbbeyRoad

“Wow, Mary is quite aggressively looking everywhere but at Jeff, and I mean even more so than is standard for Mary Worth interlocutors. I think we all know what that means. I’m pretty sure Jeff does, too, and is hastily changing the subject because he knows if he pursues it it will inevitably lead to tears, recriminations, angry newspaper-brandishing, missed Bum Boat appointments, increasingly groveling answering-machine messages to which Mary is hilariously indifferent, and his final dignity-immolating resignation to the fact that he is Mary’s very last choice, and will jump at whatever scraps of pallid affection she grudgingly allots him. I for one applaud his decision, but I think mainly out of self-interest.” –Violet

“Foolish Gary! Don’t you know you can’t turn a ho into a housewife? (‘Ho’ being short for ‘wHOlly uninteresting character in a serialized comic strip.’)” –Joe Blevins

“Elrod has boxed himself in now. All I can see upcoming is either a zombie deer, or venison chili. Either of which will frighten the children and faint of heart. But I am neither, and to see that deer lumbering around at midnight craving human brains to eat will do this old heart good. Or alternatively, a good venison chili recipe will also be appreciated.” –Jumper

“9CL: I could watch this plot for the rest of my life. And, you know, it might just take that long.” –Crow T Robot

“I think the real reason Oedipus poked his eyes out was that he knew, someday, there would be something like Momma inspired by what he’d done, and on the off chance it happened during his lifetime, he wanted to make damn sure he wouldn’t have to look at it.” –Winky’s Spleen

“Judge Parker, reclining and legs apart, urges his colleague to take some cash ‘for handling my deal.’ This has nothing to do with publishing a book, does it, Your Honour?” –Mooncattie

“Why, with half the advance money, I could buy a full-sized bottle of beer, rather than make do with this bottle of Tabasco Sauce I keep refilling with with Schlitz.” –Lettuce

“Actually, Gary is doing the right thing. Just as oil and water don’t mix, he knows not to risk getting Tommie involved with information that might be interesting to some people.” –Rhekarid

“Given that the computer system Gary’s working on is in the hospital, I’m guessing the ‘sensitive information’ he’s privy to has something to do with Tommie and a stubborn rash.” –BigTed

“I can see why Patty is so distraught. Bucky has a scratch on his head! And is all alone! In the woods! At night! On the other hand, we are talking about a fucking deer, right?” –AMSTERDANG

“Last week it was an argyle sweater with electric blue Homer Simpson pants and now it’s a mint green blazer? Why is it that all the men in Mary Worth have to dress like the awkward white people from an early ’90s rap video?” –bitter law student

“All I can say about Pluggers is thank god the waitress wasn’t a cow. Or a shrimp. Were that the case, pure mayhem might have ensued. Of course, for Pluggers, mayhem would be a big step up from its current soul-crushing despondency.” –Jeff Soesbe (yeff)

“Marty Moon tells us, ‘Bryce Larkin gets a big hand as he takes his seat.’ Well d’uh — everyone in Gil Thorp gets a big hand.” –seismic-2

“‘Internet dating sometimes yields a suspect gathering of prospects.’ Did I read that? Or am I on acid?” –Monkeyhawk

“You’re a great lay, Tommie, but you’re not HIPAA violation great.” –Kelvin the Clown

“I wish Adrian had met her boyfriend in a normal place, like a bar or schoolyard!” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“Boy, forget about the new Internet boyfriend! It’s Dr. JEFF I’d be worried about. That pose in the last panel has ‘psychopathic dismembering loony tunes’ written all over it. Even the usually unflappable Mary is watching him in the rear view mirror, timing her leap out of the moving car. Right now she’s reminding herself, ‘Tuck and roll, Mary … tuck and roll.'” –mojo

“Dolly isn’t referring to her Valentine hearts, but rather to her own seven misshapen hearts. What, you think a human can have a head shaped like that?” –Dagger

“Chip and Jerry found some 40-year-old blotter acid in the guitar case Hi had forgotten all about. It’s the only explanation for why Chip is trying to play a stringless guitar and Jerry is reading a 1978 issue of Cosmopolitan.” –Islamorada Girl

“Given the way he talks, Ted Confey is clearly some sort of time-traveling dandy from the nineteenth century. Fortunately for him, he’s landed amongst Mary Worth and co., so the displacement from his own era will seem negligible.” –Digger

“It disturbs me that none of you have put two and two together, looked at Ted Confey’s mustache, and determined that he’s going to be the next Mark Trail villain. Evidently he’s going to take the ‘only woman in the world’ and put her on some sort of wildlife preserve where she can run free as the only one of her species. Mark will then punch him.” –Aitherion

“Shoe needs a Spiderman-style narration box at the end of this strip: ‘Confused?! We’re making some changes to the world of Shoe! Not only are they vaguely birds, now they casually eat lightbulbs!!! It’s going to be awesome!'” –teddytoad

“Hey, Judge Parker literally said ‘You’re the new Judge Parker!’ to his son, confirming what we’ve known for … a decade. Maybe longer. Perhaps in a couple of years they’ll admit that their world is populated by an uncanny amount of young women with huge breasts.” –Sheila Sternwell

“I like the huge crucifix on the swearing-in Bible — presumably just to remind people that yes, it’s a Bible, and not simply the yellow pages or a Sears catalog.” –Calico

“That Confey is not only a cad, but a bounder. You mark my words. [Later:] I apologize for my strong language above. But I’d say the same to that ruffian’s face, if I only had the chance. [Later still:] In the thread to Sunday’s posting, I spoke harshly of this Confey fellow. I might as well confess that my own daughter was once the victim of a low villain such as he. It was before the days of the Internet — but even then, the same genius of cruelty, deception, and greed was at work in the world, as it has been, indeed, since the snake in the Garden first worked his insinuations on the tender mind of Eve. My daughter’s betrayer was an aerobics instructor, a respected profession in those days, and no one could have suspected that while he was firming the innocent behinds of America’s youth, he had quite other plans in mind. I won’t burden you all with the whole sordid tale; I’ll only say that when the television’s on late at night, and I see those haggard young women trying desperately to smile as they grimly ply their tawdry little fitness machines, I think of my daughter, and wonder if we’ll ever speak again, in this world or the next. I wish every day that we’d had a wise friend like Mary Worth.” –Morten

“I had no idea The Nation had a geography-focused offshoot. But it does sound fascinating, which explains why people are gathering outside the restaurant and asking questions through the window.” –ratnerstar

On Adrian Corey’s paramour: “Most likely, he’s the sort of man that delights in calling into port, wooing a young lady without prospects, and then making her overcome with the vapors at his worldly lusts. And then, while she is still swooned, he makes off with her jewelry and steals away, leaving only a scent of exotic cologne and a cloud of shame that leaves the young woman unmarriable. You better hurry, Mary, lest he hop the next zeppelin to Prussia and escape your meddling wrath.” –LightningDuke

“It will be an HONOR to use it! Get it? Honor? OH COME ON, I ALMOST NEVER TRY TO BE FUNNY! SOMEONE LAUGH BEFORE I START BASHING SKULLS WITH THIS GAVEL!” –Roto13

“I salute the individual who, faced with a pitch-black New York night, expresses his contempt for the darkness by honking his car horn religiously. Godspeed, sir.” –Lithros

“‘I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe!’ Ted said and let the bait hang, carefully watching Mary’s expression from the corner of his eye. Or would she? he wondered. Did she have any idea what he had found, deep in the depths of the blood-soaked Aztech temple? Did she suspect he had seen the carvings, the drawings that showed a woman leaning towards the king and suggesting that if he sacrificed a thousand captured prisoners the sun would not go out and perhaps his wife would love him again? Did she know what he knew about her past, the long, twisted influence she had stretched across dynasties and empires through the centuries? Ted swallowed another bite to keep up appearances. My, he thought with surprise, the shrimp scampi was good.” –Black Drazon

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