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This the last day of me putting up banners to promote my novel, The Enthusiast, on the main blog. Thanks so much to everyone who bought it and read it! Check out the first chapter, then buy:

• The hardcover or softcover edition for $25 or $15
• The ebook edition for $8, which includes files for all devices
• And if the mood strikes, you can put some money in my tip jar

Don’t worry, though, the ad for it will always be lurking in the sidebar, patiently waiting for you to click on it.

Mary Worth, 12/20/15

Yes, Christmas dinner and Mary Worth are brought to you by Whole Foods Markets Inc.! Specifically, some Whole Foods Market Inc. that is miles away from where Olive lives in Manhattan, since all Manhattan Whole foods are on the ground floor of multistory buildings. New York can be pretty smug, but for the specific type of down home holiday sanctimony Mary’s after, you really need to get out to the suburbs, you know?

Judge Parker, 12/20/15

WAIT WHAT

JUDGE PARKER EMERITUS GOT HIS FIRST NOVEL OPTIONED AS A MOVIE, AND THEY LET HIM WRITE THE SCREENPLAY EVEN THOUGH HE HAD LITERALLY NEVER WRITTEN A SCREENPLAY BEFORE, AND NOW THE STUDIO PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO MAKE PROFITABLE MOVIES HAVE READ IT AND THEY WANT … CHANGES???

THE CONCIERGE AT THE BUSINESS CENTER ON THE CRUISE SHIP HELPED HIM PUNCH IT UP AND EVERYTHING

DON’T THEY KNOW WHO HE IS

HOW DARE THEY

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My novel, The Enthusiast, is available for purchase! Check out the first chapter, then buy:

• The hardcover or softcover edition for $25 or $15
• The ebook edition for $8, which includes files for all devices
• And if the mood strikes, you can put some money in my tip jar

Order soon to get yours in time for Christmas. Thank you very much!

Judge Parker, 12/16/15

I don’t know why, but I can’t stop giggling at the phrase “died tragically in a Mexican jungle.” I know there are several noncontiguous rainforest areas in Mexico, but “a Mexican jungle” just sounds hilariously cagey. “You know, one of the jungles they have down there. Whatever the most murder-y jungle is, I forget the name. Probably it’s in Spanish or Mayan or something. The important thing is that he’s dead, and not at all living in our newly fortified guesthouse, OK?”

Momma, 12/16/15

I also can’t stop giggling at today’s Momma, mostly the part where Jim is erotically fixated on Tonya’s sexy, frilly hemline. Jim seems to like a gal who shows some calf, MaryLou, so you shouldn’t be dressing in plaid pants like some kind of prude if you want to maintain “squatter’s rights.” You know, squatter’s rights? Like, sex … squatting? Is that a thing? Distasteful as this is, at least this strip has stumbled away from accidental incest jokes.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/16/15

I think when Mason Jarr was first introduced as a character, back when they were going to make Les’s Lisa book into a terrible made-for-cable movie, he was presented as some dumb washed-up actor, but then he stuck around and generally became more sympathetic and also was supposed to have a somewhat higher-profiled career, I think? Anyway, that career is now over because he’s going to move to a depressing, economically dead town in Ohio with his wife! Funky and Holly are 100% correct to be completely gobsmacked by this.

Crankshaft, 12/16/15

Meanwhile, over in the “fun” Funkyverse strip, Crankshaft is supplementing his meager pay with a Santa Claus gig, and he has a tech-savvy elf named … Twitter! Get it, Twitter? The same name as the popular Internet website? Mercy!

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Dennis the Menace and Beetle Bailey, 12/7/15

These are, in my opinion, some solid prompts for philosophical discussion. If we conceive of our lives as an endless series of journeys towards some specific destinations, don’t we ignore the charms and possibilities of the intermediary space we pass through, every inch of which is itself a possible destination? Similarly, why do we discount the third of our lives we spend asleep? It’s largely opaque to us, but is it possible that sleep is really what we’re for, and we only wake up when we can’t sleep anymore? Anyway, A+++ work this Monday, guys, feel free to spend the rest of the week slacking off with mild jokes about children who don’t understand that you shouldn’t repeat rude things your parents say about their friends and/or the tragedy of physical abuse in our armed forces.

Judge Parker, 12/7/15

Much as I would like the Spencer-Drivers to all be arrested at once after a long investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and IRS working in tandem, I’m assuming Neddy is about to get a ticket for her semi-competent operation of this huge behemoth of a motor home. You know, in some countries, monetary fines don’t have set amounts but are instead calculated based on the offender’s income, on the logic that otherwise the rich would be able to, say, speed or run lights with impunity; this can result in very wealthy people being handed six-figure traffic tickets. The practice is almost unheard of in the U.S., and it’s too bad because otherwise the local municipality here would have its budget covered for the next decade.

Herb and Jamaal, 12/7/15

Haha, yes, fish that’s of such high quality that you can eat it raw, that’s definitely like everything else on this list here!