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So many items of interest to you, the faithful reader, have built up over the past few days that I have bundled them together into a maga-metapost! Perhaps most important: I remind everyone who lives in, or who will be near to, the Tucson, AZ, area on March 7 that you will have an opportunity to meet me! And the lovely and talented Mrs. C.! And Bob Weber, Jr.! We’ll be meeting up at the Kon Tiki lounge at 6 pm (an hour earlier than my initial announcement). (UPDATE: Mrs. C. wanted me to make it clear that we’ll be having dinner.) Here’s the thing: I’m going to be making reservations, so if you plan on meeting up with us, it is imperative that you let me know so that I can make the reservation for the correct number of people! I’m going to make the reservations on Monday, so please e-mail me at bio@jfruh.com before then! Please? Pretty please?

Now, on to the other random bits o’ info!

• Most of you are familiar with the outrageously awesome Reynard Noir, which reimagines Slylock Fox as an ongoing old-school noir film. The site’s creator, Rob MacArthur, was recently interviewed by Kittysneezes.com. A fascinating look behind the scenes! The second part of the interview is where he starts really talking about his site.
• Speaking of Slylock Fox, Bob Weber, Jr., now has his own store at CafePress! I don’t get a cut of any of this stuff, but you should check it out anyway!
• I’ve been hearing rumblings for some time about the coming Luann-based musical, but it all seems to be coming to fruition; apparently there’s going to be a staged reading at San Diego’s New Village Arts Theatre this coming Monday. (Does a “reading” of a musical actually involve singing?) Any faithful readers in the area are desperately begged to attend and report!
• Finally, I’ve been meaning to share this picture and note for a while. Faithful reader Barry encountered Mark Trail himself in the comic strip section of Universal’s Islands of Adventure!

  

  

  “It felt blasphemous to turn Mark Trail’s mighty fist of justice against him,” Barry reports, “but the only way to pose the shot in its rightful Mark-Trail-beatdown-handing-out context would be to have him punching me in the crotch, and Mark keeps his punches above the belt. As any good naturalist should.” Barry also notes that “just up the street was the Spider-Man ride. I tried to stage something there, but couldn’t find any bricks or TV sets handy.”

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Blondie, 2/15/08

I suppose by “old college sweatshirt” Dagwood means “sweatshirt I wore when I was in college,” but when I think “college sweatshirt” I would visualize a sweatshirt that has, you know, a college’s logo or mascot on it, or at least its name. Then again, Dagwood went to college during the Harding Administration, when there were probably only about ten or twelve active universities in the United States, so maybe the colors were enough. Back then, the mere sight of a blue and black garment let you know that you were in the presence of a graduate of Dagwood’s esteemed alma mater. I’m sure he has many fond memories of rooting on The Stripes on the base-ball field.

Gil Thorp, 2/15/08

You might recall that after the famed self-clubbing incident of early 2007, Tyler was banished to intensive psychiatric treatment. Obviously it worked like gangbusters. He’s gone all season without bludgeoning himself; and, what’s more, thanks to his new self-knowledge, he’s gained an almost uncanny insight into how the human psyche works. It’s almost as if he’s able to project himself out of his spit-curled head and into Andrew Gregory’s slightly longer spit-curled head. Gil and Kaz will be thankful for his help in this case, obviously, but may grow increasingly nervous about just what kind of mind-reading monster they’ve created.

Lockhorns, 2/15/08

The Lockhorns schtick is generally not difficult to wrap one’s head around — they hate each other, you see — so the occasional panel composed of complete nonsense is all the more surprising. Who exactly is Leroy playing chess against? Why are all the pieces the same color? Why does Loretta’s “sleepy eyes” face look exactly like her “black eyes from getting in a car wreck” face? And how does it all fit in with their endless attempts to destroy one another, as everything inevitably does?

Mark Trail, 2/15/08

This may be the greatest ever Mark Trail that doesn’t actually feature Mark punching anybody. At last, we get to see a bear dish out the punishment and hostility, though alas some kind of syndicate rule seems to forbid the depiction of the Neanderthal henchman being eviscerated, so we instead need to settle for the sight of him fleeing in terror unrealistically quickly. I do like the fact that the widow Malone seems to merely stand around arching her eyebrows sexily while her muscle is nearly mauled. “Sorry, the bullets in this rifle are only for the elimination of one Mark Trail, not for some great furry beast. Perhaps you should have made use of your own weapon rather than casting it aside and screaming ‘AHHHH..’, you bearded cretin!”

Marvin, 2/15/08

OK, Marvin, that’s … that’s enough with the ass jokes. For serious now.

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Spider-Man, 2/12/08

Say, have you ever wondered what it would have been like if Casablanca ended not with Rick shooting Major Strasser and Captain Renault covering up for it, but with Rick hitting him in the back of the head and barely knocking him unconscious, after which the two of them just jauntily walk off to enjoy their last few hours of freedom before being sent to a concentration camp? Well, today’s Spider-Man is for you, sort of!

This is not to say that Spider-Man is a Nazi, as my scenario would imply. The Nazis may have been the most evil regime in history, but at least they did stuff. If all Hitler did was sit around watching TV and complaining about the Jews and their terrible sitcoms, the world would be a much better place.

Marmaduke, 2/12/08

Since there’s no way an actual plunger could be holding a bone in place like that, I’m going to guess that the problem found by Aace Plumbing is that Marmaduke’s family’s “plunger” is actually a ghastly trophy made out of a human femur. Possibly the femur of the last plumber who got too nosy.

Gil Thorp, 2/12/08

Well, now we know: Andrew Gregory is Tyler Jay with a longer head. The spit-curl resemblance is really uncanny; perhaps this is the haircut assigned to all new mentally unbalanced Gil Thorp characters. In panel two, the A-Train actually appears to be literally unbalanced as well, covering up his inability to stand up straight with his usual demented patter.

Judger Parker, 2/12/08

For those of you not following along with Judge Parker at home (and really, who could blame you if you aren’t), Gloria is giving Sam a more or less accurate recap of the story of How Steve Lost His Legs, as told to her by Steve in detail, which recounting we saw in this very comic strip mere days ago. I look forward to seeing Sam tell Abbey next week, who’ll tell Biff Dickens, who’ll tell his wife, and so an and so forth. It’ll be like a game of telephone, only this is Judge Parker, so it’ll be a boring game where the information doesn’t get changed in the retelling.

Garfield, 2/12/08

Comics in which Garfield drolly remarks on his sodomization by ice-cold thermometers = comedy gold. I’m totally serious about this.

Mark Trail, 2/12/08

yes bears bears bears bears RISE UP AND DEVOUR YOUR HUMAN OPPRESSOR, MY URSINE FRIEND