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Okay okay okay! Last Saturday’s post asked

where are the hot guys in today’s newspaper comics?

And you responded — in bulk! Seriously, the range of response confirms recent research that folks are more, er, refined in selecting men than men are in selecting women.

No room to list them all (and “Original Brawny Towel Man” is not a comic-strip character, dammit!), but here’s a tasty sample:

Judge Parker 10/20/2006

Judge Parker, 8/5/07

Hunky dimwit Sam Driver is curiously immune to the thrusty charms of women, including his wife.

Slylock Fox, 2/19/07 and 9/3/07

¿Quién es más macho? Buford Bull o Slylock Fox? Oh — I think we know!

Li’l Abner

Several people expressed a hankerin’ for uncomplicated beefcake “L’il” Abner Yokum, wisely favoring him over jailbait brother Tiny.

9 Chickweed Lane, 8/3/07

Everybody’s front-runner, Seth. Generous, confident, and chinly — all qualities thin on the ground in 9CL. Oh, did I mention pauciloquent? See, Brooke? I own a thesaurus, too!

Traditional “male” stereotypes — Mark Trail, Dick Tracy, even o’l stripey Phantom — received a resounding “meh” from our faithful readership. Surprise contenders included Rob Wilco from Get Fuzzy, the Grampa from One Big Happy, and Ted Forth. One person suggested that Margo was more of a man than anyone in the comics. I think the person who suggested Leroy Lockhorn was joking.

And here’s a dark horse, from the very darkest of stables:

Funky Winkerbean, 6/9/07

Comic John* went to the prom with Chien, had a good time, and probably earned himself a slot in author Tom Batiuk’s scheduled (and most likely written and illustrated) Great Leap Forward. And in the words of faithful reader Three or Four, “Seriously. Whoever gives him a charity lay is gonna get the surprise of her life.”

mmmmmmm. . . . Original Brawny Towel Man. They really sold out with that second guy.

— Uncle Lumpy

* Observant reader Al notes below that this is not, in fact, Comic John, but Mopey Pete. Please make the appropriate substitutions.

This just in!

For the ladies: Thanks to the diligent Intertube research of faithful reader Godzooky, we have this rare image of our Man of Mystery, his Black Orchid, and the Love of his Life. Go nuts!

Brenda Starr, Reporter, 1963

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Apartment 3G, 9/2/07

Oh, crap. Nora, here, who appears to be suffering from the same three-panel age acceleration as Tommie, looks like she’s becoming the focus of a Margo-related storyline. This means that for me to understand what’s going on with Margo, I need to pay attention to this person who looks just like her, but is deeply, profoundly, vastly more boring. Can anybody help? Somebody’s sister, and there’s a sick kid, and a drug addict with a gas leak? China, and some people there? Oh, crap.

Nice skeptical eye-rolling by Tommie ‘n’ Luann in #4, but this Nora thing, hmf.

The Phantom, 9/2/07

I’ll confess to letting ol’ Sunday Stripey slide a little after the Beryl Markham fantasy plot — hey, The Phantom has two separate plots to follow, okay? — but here it is in a nutshell: “Mumble mumble artifacts mumble not really grave-robbers mumble mumble that lady is pretty hot mumble heh heh guy’s making owl noises.” Phantom totally called him on it! NEXT!!!

Funky Winkerbean, 9/2/07

Well, at last here’s something I can understand. Having accepted Lisa’s imminent death just last night, Les is now working hard to bring it about. And he brought Darrin and little Summer along to help! Ah, the family that plays together. . . wait, that’s just not gonna work, is it?

— Uncle Lumpy

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Spend half your life in school and the end of August brims with dread. Here comes!

Mark Trail, 8/31/07

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It begins with smiles — smiles and good, hot coffee savored with the one you love, in a special place in the sun it feels like God created just for you. But it ends in fists — fists, and hair.

So, Elrod — pick up the pace a little, willya?

Apartment 3G, 8/31/07

Oh, this will end in tears. Not only does Tommie have a chance at happiness — she has two, in the persons of Gary Bland and Dr. Joe Doctor. Apparently, this ages her from a toddler in panel 1 through panel 2’s young adult, to the garish, pitted, furrowed crone of #3. Tomorrow’s strip may have her crumbling to dust, muttering somebody’s name — but whose? Meanwhile, Margo’s fixin’ to hate on her, no matter how it turns out.

Funky Winkerbean, 8/31/07

It’s a measure of how far we’ve come in Funky Winkerbean that the arrival of Les’s bête bleu (extruded into the narrative as “my imagination’s wicked way of personifying depression”) is the most interesting thing to happen in months, birthchild reunion and Congressional testimony notwithstanding. With any luck, we’ll enjoy weeks of manufactured irony: “It’s Lisa who’s dying, but Les who is sick!”

Pearls Before Swine, 8/31/07

Theme or no theme, there’s some stuff you just can’t pass by. You gotta love panel 2’s Socialist Realist fanart of Jeffy, and the Dolly pennant. Dare we dream of a day when all the comics exist solely to mock other comics, and our work here is done? Because that would be a day, my droogies; that would be a day.

— Uncle Lumpy