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Hello everyone! Your slightly truncated end-of-year COTW in a moment, but first, a couple of important notes. First, as he does every year, faithful reader Wanders has put together The Worthy Awards, celebrating the best Mary Worth had to offer in 2017. Vote in classic categories like “Outstanding Floating Head” and new ones like “Outstanding Stunt!”

Secondly, if you are going to be in LA in the new year and already are worried about how you’ll entertain yourself, why not commit to attending The Internet Read Aloud at 8 pm on Friday January 5th! It’s a live show hosted by me that includes many jokes about the Internet that you’ll probably enjoy!

As is traditional, I’m taking the next week and change off, but will be back in the comics-mocking saddle sometime … oh, let’s say January 2nd-ish. Have a happy Christmas and New Year and I’ll see you in 2018! In the meantime, enjoy this final comment of the week for the year:

“Why is the bear wearing a hard hat? Alternatively, why is nobody else wearing one? Slylock really ought to be using those reasoning skills to see if maybe he’s underneath something heavy.” –Drew

These runners up are hilarious as well!

“Claude Manx is a very international name for a plugger. I wonder, what brought this cat from his Franco-Gaelic homeland to blue-collar America? Was he once a French millionaire who tried to hide his ill-gotten gains in the notorious tax haven, only to lose it all and flee to the States under a transparent assumed name? Was he the son of a Vichyste captured by the Allies and interned on the Isle of Man, trying to escape the shadow of his father’s crimes? Was he… oh, it’s meant to sound like ‘Clawed,’ I get it.” –Schroduck

“‘That’s it! We’ll go caroling!’ said Lois, to no one at all, in a manic kind of way that makes me worry about where her children are.” –pugfuggly

“Rex’s order from the Franklin Mint goes south.” Kevin on Earth

“The dove of peace looks pretty threatening to the cardinal. What’s he going to do, shit on the cardinal’s car?” –Northernlurker

“‘Kelly is on her computer all day…’ It’s called a webcam.” –Liam Astle, on Facebook

“He’s so well-groomed. If only I could grow stubble like that! Hmm, maybe a chin-combover?” –Peanut Gallery

“I want — no, I need — wallpaper of Wilbur stalking behind the landscaping. I don’t mean computer wallpaper. I want this on the wall in my kitchen, reminding everyone to use condiments responsibly.” –Nekrotzar

“Please God let this be a shrubbery costume he’s wearing all around town.” –Anne Elisabeth Dillon, on Facebook

“Is he a professional or into illegal activities? Let me stalk him, maybe install a camera to spy on him in his home, maybe go through his garbage looking for something incriminating. I’ll find out if he is a no good creep!” –Joe Momma

“I didn’t know that Wilbur could move like that! In that I mean he has the ability to crouch and hide. I hope his knockoff Members Only pants will be able to keep up with these new activities.” –Government Cheese

“I am puzzled how Mark Trail’s going to get involved in the diamond smuggling/incipient murder that’s going on in his strip. Maybe the murder of an endangered raccoon-bearded Tut cosplayer (Procyonbarba tutankhamun, if you need the binomial name) will get his attention?” –Voshkod

“I like that, even though Dirty is a criminal lowlife whose nickname suggests filth, he keeps his T-shirt blindingly white and his hair as well-manicured as the grass at a Major League ballpark.” –Joe Blevins

“She would’ve loved it. I, on the other hand, think it’s melodramatic, self-indulgent, and badly written. She had terrible taste.” –Ettorre

“This is just like The Jazz Singer … but with football … and no father … or jazz. Okay, it’s nothing like The Jazz Singer.” –Dennis Jimenez

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Funky Winkerbean, 12/22/17

I think we can all agree that the worst part of the Funkyverse is the endless smirking, and today’s strip contains what might be the most malignant example I’ve seen in years. This guy just bought a book about Les’s dead wife/Darin’s dead bio-mom for his wife — who, in a stunning third-panel twist, turns out to also be dead. Les and Darin smirk meaningfully at each other. Nailed it! they’re thinking. People who have lost loved ones are gonna make us rich!

Gil Thorp, 12/22/17

Hey guys, did you know that people who declared bankruptcy don’t have the right to have opinions about their nephews playing sports? True story! Looks like Rick Soto’s back in the game!

Mary Worth, 12/22/17

“I have plans… I’m going to be capturing Iris’s soul in a steaming hot cup of coffee, using Andean magic I learned on a remote Colombian coffee farm. That way she can never leave me! Wait, did I say that out loud?”

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Spider-Man, 12/20/17

Let’s ignore the super-fisticuffs here for a moment and marvel at the moment where real serendipitous scientific progress is being made! When we last got a good look at the number that gator did on Dr. Connors, his pants had a huge hole in the leg, revealing his gashed thigh-flesh. But now it appears his pants have healed themselves, leaving just a fading scar where the material has somehow knitted itself back together. Could it be that Dr. Connors has been wasting his time with bioengineering potions and should instead focus on the “smart clothing” that can merge with and cybernetically enhance the human body?

Meanwhile, I know that playing around with the borders of comics panels for visual effect has a long and honorable history, but I’m pretty sure what’s going on between panels two and three isn’t so much “Let’s tweak longstanding visual storytelling conventions to create striking imagery that changes how readers perceive the narrative” as “oh crap I drew that guy’s body too far to the right and his head isn’t going to fit here, uh, uh, uh”

Mary Worth, 12/20/17

Holy shit, Wilbur really is going into a full-on paranoid breakdown in regards to Iris’s wealthy new boytoy. “My ex-girlfriend, whom I hold in high regard and desperately want to reconnect with, has a filthy drug-addict son and her new boyfriend is probably a criminal because she’s got no morals or loyalty. What a bitch! God I love her, the traitor!”