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I know I said I was going to gloss over the strips that ran during my vacation, but, you know, I had to read them, at least the ones that have continuing storylines, if I didn’t want to be totally lost, and once I started reading them, well, some of them just were really calling out for the treatment and … I know, it’s a sickness. Anyway, here, quickly, are the high points of December 23 through January 1!

Judge Parker, 12/24/07

A very gratuitous Christmas came a day early for Abbey Spencer fans. I know that when most of you ladies have a sudden, drug-induced urge to paint your study, you want to slip into something more comfortable — like a halter top and a pair of Daisy Dukes so tight that you’re actually incapable of standing up straight.

Mary Worth, 12/24/07

Chester’s real owner apparently stole him away and, unbeknownst to Mary, replaced him with a plastic replica, if his weird sitting-in-midair position in panel one is any indication.

Spider-Man, 12/24/07

Peter Parker, meanwhile, got the best gift a boy could get: A trip to prison! Oh boy!

Christmas Day usually sees some variously awkward greetings shoehorned into different strips. My two favorites from 2007 were Dick Tracy, which heralded the birth of Our Savior with a scene of a collapsing building and an excitable workingman blathering about being pelted with corpses:

…and Gil Thorp, which proudly featured a set of cramped, noseless horrors that made last year’s Christmas card look museum-worthy:

For Better Or For Worse, 12/26/07

Meanwhile, Anthony has figured out a way to make little Francie accept her new mommy: force her to watch their bland, noodly sexual congress.

Gil Thorp, 12/28/07

Gil Thorp promises to break new dramatic ground in the new year by featuring a high school-aged student-athlete who is arrogant and unpleasant! (And yet how can we hate anyone who throws around put-downs like “climb down off your dinosaur”?)

Mark Trail, 12/29/07

A terminally ill Luke Wilson said, “Don’t waste your time, Trail,” by which he obviously means “Let’s not over-stimulate your readers with any kind of action or excitement when I can just tell them all what happened and then expire quietly.” No word yet on whether Mark will punch his corpse.

Panels from Apartment 3-G, 12/30/07

Margo added another bullet point to her résumé of personal destruction: enabler!

Panel from Judge Parker, 12/30/07

Sam proved, as if we need any more evidence, that he has no intention of having sex with his wife ever again.

For Better Or For Worse, 1/1/08

And, in the first moments of 2008, April took a good, long look at Gerald’s penis. She looks troubled by what she sees.

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Mary Worth, 12/25/07

Ho ho ho, old lady! Soon your beloved new pet — the only living thing that can still stand to be around you, or the only one that can’t flee, at least — will be torn away from you and then you’ll be ALONE, ALONE, ALONE! Ha ha ha! Holiday greetings!

So, I’m back! Sad to say, I haven’t even caught up on the comics yet from my visit — I have no idea what’s going on with Chester’s Choice and the Damn Brownies and Liz and Anthony’s Half-Hearted Christmas Eve Lovemaking and OH MY GOD THE CURTIS KWANZAARAMA! I had to have my attention drawn to the Christmas Day gem above by a link on the Shortpacked! blog. Showing how much the Shortpacked/Comics Curmudgeon readerships are overlapping, here’s this random picture of Finger-Quotin’ 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime from faithful reader Stewart Dean!

Er. So, how did your Christmas go, faithful readers? Get any good loot? The comics-related elements in my haul included the awesomely named Art of Ill Will, a book on the history of political comics, which I got from my dad. More visually intriguing was the following gem:

There’s nothing better to give a young narcissist than the gift of ME! This fine portrait was drawn by cartoonist Tony Millionaire, the guy behind Maakies and Sock Monkey. Mr. Millionaire was involved in a Christmas original art swap with Alison Bechdel, of longtime Dykes to Watch Out For and more recent Fun Home fame. Ms. Bechdel, whom I met once in NYC earlier this year, said:

I kept racking my brains, trying to think of someone who’d really, truly appreciate a Tony Millionaire portrait of themselves … but to no avail. Then I was looking through my iPhoto pictures for some reason, and ran across a couple I’d taken of you at MoCCA in June. And I thought, Of course! The Curmudgeon!

My heart was extremely touched! And my head got slightly bigger! I thought I’d share this picture with you before I permanently installed it on the ceiling above my bed.

But hey, enough about me! What about your late December extravanganzae? I know for a fact that at least five of you were celebrating in style, enjoying a Comics Curmudgeon meetup in the Big Easy on December 26!

From left, that’s faithful readers Big Sims, Shannon, Non-Shannon (in Chopstick Technique gear), Bootsy (in Search Advice gear), and Trotzenbonnie (in partially obscured the Urge gear). I love this picture so much. Don’t they look like a team of superheroes in their secret identities? Or perhaps a rag-tag gang of misfits, each with a unique skill, called together to rescue the kidnapped president, or perhaps rob a high-security vault full of diamonds?

In the next picture, you can get a better look at the Urge shirt, and see that the circle at the base of the arrow does not in fact center over one’s nipple as some feared. Also, Trotzenbonnie and Shannon look awfully calm considering they’re right next to some kind of horrifying FBOFW-branded demon-eyed doll thing.

I also got the following note and picture:

Latest CNN hero Steve Peifer sends his greetings before he departs to Kenya. He’s your biggest fan in Africa. See more at CNN’s Web site. One may wonder why he is writing in third person, it’s because his amazing son is writing it!!!

No word on whether Steve is baffling the children of Kenya with his Mark Trail-themed shirt as he arranges for food to be available to them in their schools. A shout-out to you, Steve!

Also! Through means that I’m not at liberty to disclose, I am able to share with you some Christmas pictures from another Comics Curmudgeon regular. Here’s the Galactic Emperor Chennux attempting to magmacannon Chucky, the Fiber Optic Snowman.

And here his Imperial Loudness enjoys a simple Zynexian feast of potatoes and syrup prior to skxcritort deployment.

And! While I must sadly pass over most of the comics that ran while I was on vacation, I am obliged to linger over a couple of TDIETs that appeared during my absence. The first comes from an idea submitted by faithful reader HBGlord:

They’ll Do It Every Time, 12/24/07

Bonus Scadutoism: “Yo-yo-b-ba-bee-yo-y-yo”.

The second is from faithful reader Matt Brauer. I particularly enjoy the look of real anger on little Ragweed Jr. as he attempts to bludgeon his sister with a baseball bat.

Bonus Scadutoism: “kinder.”

Real comics from yours truly … tomorrow! Meanwhile, I shall let Keg of Curd rule the COTW roost until next Monday, but for now we must give thanks to our advertisers, yes we must.

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Mary Worth, 12/20/07

Sadly, rules about depicting animal violence prevent us from seeing the bloody glory of this little-dog-on-littler-dog battle, but it’s obvious that Chester won, since his Margo Magee lookalike owner had to fish him out of the fighting pit. The motion lines in panel one also make it look like Mary just backhanded her nemesis in the back of the head for good measure. But for my money the greatest thing about this comic is the wordless exclamation point Mary is emitting in the second panel. It’s clear that nobody has told Mary that anything was her fault, ever. Watch out, fur-collared-coat lady! Mary got a bunch of her friends together to help her talk a guy into suicide once, and his crimes were clearly nothing compared to you attempting to cast blame on the Queen of Charterstone.

Marmaduke, 12/20/07

Marmaduke’s troubling slide into insanity accelerates. Never mind the fact that if Marmaduke wasn’t sitting, he’d just be running around and destroying things, and possibly humping his owner’s hapless guest; his sitting would probably be less intrusive if the various pieces of furniture in the living room were, you know, more than eight inches apart.

Crankshaft, 12/20/07

I’m always kind of interested in the flashback scenes in Crankshaft. This woman is (if I have the family relationships right, which I’m still not 100 percent sure that I do) the ’Shaft’s daughter, so it’s intriguing to see the man’s family when he was younger and maybe not so cranky and HOLY GOD WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT THING IN FRONT OF THE LITTLE GIRL’S FACE IN THE THIRD PANEL WHERE THE HELL IS HER MOM SHOPPING FOR ORNAMENTS HOLY CRAP!