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Folks, it’s taken me a bit to get up and running this post-holiday week so I’m letting the current COTW stay up there until the 10th. But I am going to engage in the honored Friday tradition of plugging stuff in this metapost:

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Tickets are limited so buy some now!

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I’m not quite ready to sign off on comics-mocking for the decade yet, but nevertheless, this’ll be your last COTW for a while, so enjoy it! BUT FIRST: enjoy the anticipation of the first Internet Read Aloud of the ’20s, coming your way in only two weeks!

Here’s the Facebook event! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO BE THERE!

Like I said, I’ve got a few more days of comics mocking in me, so please refresh ad-serving joshreads dot com pages constantly for updates, but for now, here’s your comment … of the week!

“Leroy has figured out the truth. The DEA never inspects ‘Tube Socks.’ Month after month, socks come up from Colombia. Month after month, Leroy repackages them and sends them on. Month after month, Leroy is paid well for this and, month after month, he refuses to spend a dime of it to do a damn thing for Loretta. The money just sits there, accruing interest, and Leroy imagines dying first. Loretta at the lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. ‘The remainder of the estate, amounting to $15 million in cash, is left to … the fire. I am directed to burn it all, and I quote, in front of my wife.’ It’ll be so great, Leroy thinks. Just wish I could be there to see it.” –Voshkod

And your very funny runners up!

“‘What’s new in the funeral home business?’ He’s got his reporter’s notebook out, which makes his question legit, so I guess he’s expecting to publish a big scoop in tomorrow’s Treetops Tattler. At least, Brookins/MacNelly didn’t go with an answer of ‘nothing, it’s a dying industry.’” –Just John

“God, look at the shit-eating (sorry) grin on Marvin in the last panel. That is the face of sociopathic malice, right there. ‘Yeah, I gave my mom post-partum depression,’ he’s thinking, ‘Life is good.’” –TheDiva

“Apparently, Lorenzo was a magician who would escape from an alligator. He couldn’t do that now — the animal-rights folks would be all over him, and buying a new alligator every day has gotten super-expensive.” –BigTed

“No one else ever interacts with Harry. I think he’s a ghost that haunts Becky.” –Tom T.

“Okay, look, we all know I make these stupid puns to delay actually making you guys play anything, because whenever you do, it sounds like an owl fucking a capybara, which I realize is a highly specific comparison to make, but hey, the poster’s on the door for a reason.” –els

“I’m not sure how I feel about the comic pointing out its own inability to tell jokes. If Batuik mocks his own comics so we don’t have to, aren’t we all out of a job?” –JJ48

“Sure, shoppers, there is a pissy-faced girl blocking the path and throwing off a hundred-foot zone of ‘don’t-give-a-shit,’ but that plain, black lettering on a white posted board ‘Visit Santa’ sign is inviting, right?” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“I know this isn’t really a ‘gag a day’ strip, but is there supposed to be a joke in there? I mean, it sure looks like Cayla finds the idea of her husband alone and miserable at Christmas kinda funny, which, yeah, I guess I kinda get.” –pugfuggly

“When you’re an experienced country doctor, you don’t start right off with, ‘Whoa, that’s a hell of a shiner you’ve got there!’ You lead up to it with small talk first.” –Peanut Gallery

“Estelle, Wilbur is not any better to be around when he’s predictable.” –Rosstifer

“If you keep missing Wilbur, maybe you should hire a hit man? I hear they don’t miss.” –ZeroWolf

“Dagwood said no to putting this product on his head. He ended up wearing it anyway and walked away reflecting how the person who gave it to him was right not to accept his rejection. And now multiple people are giving him nigh identical greetings, one telling him how good he looks for wearing it, all smiling and friendly in the midst of what should be frustrating purchasing sprees. Are there any ways to read that other than a mind control cult? Probably, but they rely on the idea that ‘extendo licks’ proved a good idea, so I’m ignoring them.” –pachoo

“That ‘sniff‘ reminds us that for decades pluggers thought fuzzy dice were air fresheners.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“So she used Google to find other, more interesting book readings in the area.” –nescio

“Panel two shows a man who is both terrified and getting exactly what he wants simultaneously. Mark secretly always wants a bear attack. You think when he’s talking to Cherry or, god forbid, Rusty, he isn’t praying for a bear to come bounding in? Of course he is! This Himalayan red is a manifestation of Mark’s subconscious, much as the Id Monster is for Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.” –Joe Blevins

“I have bear repellent! Unfortunately I only brought enough for one person. Later bitches! Ha Haw!” –Danielakiiki

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon! If you’d like to advertise on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get your very own shoutout in this space, head on over to my BuySellAds page!

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Comment of the week? Comment of the week!

“You can tell Mike Nomad is a seasoned pro. He doesn’t need to ask what this armored car driver’s name is, or who he works for, or why he didn’t come forward sooner, or how he has Mike Nomad’s phone number, or why he’s calling him instead of the local authorities. Sure, a mysterious individual called him to bait him and his friend into a murderous trap yesterday, but that was yesterday, man. Pros don’t live in the past.” –jroggs

Hilarious runners up? Hilarious runners up!

“This is so unrealistic! I refuse to believe that someone who has never even seen a lightbulb would have one over his head when he has an idea.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“Has anyone gone to a rock concert in a small club over the past few years? I have, and 90% of the audience looks like peers of George and Martha — that is, aged baby boomers out to revisit the classic music of their youth. So, I guess what I’m saying is that the real menace is time, and always was time.” –Where’s Rocky?

“There are very few ways in which a comic strip — a dying art and industry — can produce actual change and help save democracy. A salute Dennis the Menace for finding the perfect way: making fedoras even more uncool.” –Ettorre

“What is up with Vitamin’s face in that first panel. It’s like he’s getting blown by a succubus or heard a joke that is so funny it kills you.” –toxic

“So Alexa drinks her coffee in the car, wears noise-canceling headphones throughout the drive, and waits till she gets to school to work out and shower. If nothing else, this is one teenager who’s really figured out how never to talk to her parents.” –BigTed

“Dagwood opening his eyes wide to consume an improbably high stack of video subscriptions” –ambignostic, on Twitter

“I beg of you not to do this thing. If Garfield gets hold of this lasagna, there’ll never be another decent meal cooked in this kitchen. He’s already got charge of the manicotti. He’s got the stuffed shells. He got the garlic bread! And now he’s after us. Joe, you had one of those Garfield veal parmesan, didn’t you? Well, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten how long you were in the bathroom afterwards? Here, Ed. You know, you remember last year when things weren’t going so well, and you couldn’t make your spaghetti alla puttanesca? You didn’t lose your lunch, did you? Do you think Garfield would have let you keep it? Can’t you understand what’s happening here? Don’t you see what’s happening? Garfield isn’t cooking. Garfield’s eating! Now, we can get through this thing all right. We’ve got to stick together, though. We’ve got to have faith in each other. Otherwise we’ll be the meat in the lasagna!” –Voshkod

“Mr. Nomad, I know a place where you can get top quality turtlenecks cheap. And in every shade you can imagine — rust, bronze, tan, harvest gold, you name it.” –Joe Blevins

“Henry is clearly looking at a drawing by the Dadaist Paul Klee and speaking into the Notes app on his phone. The only thing left in his life that makes him truly happy is working on that art history thesis for the degree that he abandoned when he had to get a more menial job to support his family. Dennis, meanwhile, having grown up in the age of the internet, just sees everything as porn. The menace here is abundant.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“Does that dude in the middle panel normally wear that hat, or is he just getting into character for his call. ‘Ok, I’m Sam. I’m an armored car driver, and I collect stamps in my time off. I’m … an only child, and I grew up feeling closer to my mother. Yeah … yeah, I think i’m getting this.’” –pugfuggly

“Well of course the ‘Book Fair’ room is empty — everybody’s down the hall at the ‘Book Terrific!’ room.” –Uncle Lumpy

“It’s not a great book signing when nobody attends your event. Have I got the gist of this week’s installments about right?” –Just John

“Listen, if we’re going to talk about ‘menacing,’ let’s talk about that teacher’s midsection, and what her obvious corset fetish has done to it.” –pastordan

“‘You are fettered,’ said Funky, trembling. ‘Tell me why?’ ‘I wear the red trucker hat I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it gripe by gripe, and malaprop by malaprop; I refused to take it off of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.’” –Mighty Sean Young

“And that’s how Funky discovered the true meaning of Christmas: inventory management.” –GeoGreg

“‘Spontaneous‘ might apply to abruptly quitting a job you spent years in school preparing for because three weeks of Dennis are more than you can abide. Given that his teacher is never the same person twice, that’s about as menacing as it gets.” –cheech wizard

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon! If you’d like to advertise on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get your very own shoutout in this space, head on over to my BuySellAds page!