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On the Comics Curmudgeon’s 8th blogiversary, I have a couple of quick notes on my planned novel. First, THANK YOU! My Kickstarter reached its goal in the first 24 hours it was up, and has already raised much more money than any fundraiser I’ve ever done. The book will still be better — better edited, better designed, and better written — if I get more pre-orders, and you get a more physically pleasing version of the book if you pre-order, so please do check it out.

Second, you might note that some of the high-end rewards I’ve offered involve me travelling to your home town to participate in a book party. These look pricey, but aren’t so much if you split the costs among many party guests! If you’re interested in hosting, email me and tell me where you live, and I’ll try to connect you with others nearby.

Blondie, 7/11/12

Mr. Dithers is violating any number of employee protection laws, but it’s almost certainly worth it.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/11/12

Sorry, Rex, Iris hasn’t understood a word you said since she heard the telltale sound of a corkscrew opening, because she’s been so very focused on staring intently at the delicious, delicious wine.

Luann, 7/11/12

When Luann’s mom was a teen, “heavy face time” was the name for a deadly plague that caused people’s faces to fill with pus and swell up painfully, so you can understand why she looks so upset.

Beetle Bailey, 7/11/12

I feel bad for constantly making fun of General Halftrack’s alcoholism and erratic behavior now that I know that he suffers from terrible PTSD.

Family Circus, 7/11/12

Sam the dog looks beseechingly at the sky, wondering why the ancient Thunder God gave Jeffy enough warning to successfully escape the terrible electric death prepared for him.

Herb and Jamaal, 7/11/12

Herb’s attempts to live out his philosophy of non-violence as a youth failed to make him a better person, and instead have left him a bitter, frustrated adult, consumed by thoughts of revenge.

Six Chix, 7/11/12

This nice scientist has grown a baby in a lab, raising any number of disturbing ethical questions.

Marmaduke, 7/11/12

Someone gave Marmaduke a bag of corn chips.

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Herb and Jamaal, 6/30/12

I almost have to agree with Herb here? Though maybe “amazing” isn’t the word I would use. More “puzzling.” It’s puzzling to me that Jamaal is just sitting at the counter, staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular, and then suddenly chirping out fun facts about Burmese Buddhist savants. It’s not like he’s reading it from a book or anything, he just says it, as if the thought had been rolling around his skull like a marble and just now popped out. Is Jamaal high? I’m worried that Jamaal is high.

Jumble, 6/30/12

As far as Whimsical Animal Partial Nudity goes, I’ve always found Smokey the Bear’s pants-but-no-shirt look much more unsettling than Donald Duck’s shirt-but-no-pants configuration. I guess I’m just more willing to accept Donald’s sailor shirt as kind of a shorthand for a whole outfit, or maybe I’m just willingly blind to his exposed crotch. Meanwhile, Smokey really looks half-dressed to me, like a forest ranger who one day decided to go shirtless during his work in the great outdoors and show off his furry, muscular torso to the world. Admittedly, he looks classier than his friend over there in the baseball cap and too-small tank top, but still.

Ziggy, 6/30/12

Ziggy looks kind of unsettled by the prospect of someday becoming romantically involved with a dog, but, to my mind, not unsettled enough.

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Judge Parker, 6/26/12

Awww yeah it’s a massive rural marijuana grow operation, everybody! Obviously Judge Parker saw that Mark Trail did a story depicting vast fields of marijuana plants and got noticed by the popular press for it and so now they want in! Judge Parker of course did its own pot-growing storyline back in 2007 and ’08, when Sam and Abbey’s elderly next-door neighbors built a mysterious landing strip and then brought Abbey some brownies which made her act all funny and she and Sam almost had sex but then didn’t and then Abbey tried spying on them to find out more and eventually they ended up getting busted totally off-panel, for growing pot. But this new batch of pot growers aren’t the sort of genteel dabblers who can afford to live in the same zip code as the Spencer-Driver clan; they’re no doubt tougher rural types, connected to both larger drug cartels and inner-city distribution networks, heavily armed and not amenable to soft, rich, big-city types literally stumbling onto their turf. Or maybe their hostility will dissipate once Avery negotiates a multimillion dollar deal for them to appear in their own reality TV series on the Discovery Channel, Real Farmers of Mendocino County.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/26/12

“For instance, you can still love someone even if they snoop on other people’s conversations, always assume that anything negative you say is about them, and get all pissy about it!”

Beetle Bailey, 6/26/12

Desperate to save his only friend from the horrors of war, Sarge tries assigning Otto to desk duty, despite his illiteracy. But the General knows that the Army needs bodies for the front line — and doesn’t care what species those bodies are from.