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Your comment of the week in a moment but first: there’s a new book out from friend of the blog/RiffTrax writer/hilarious human Conor Lastowka, The Pole Vault Champion Of The Entire Universe, and you need to check it out! It’s got pole vaulting, space aliens, micronations, and the Olympics — what’s not to love? Conor also wrote Gone Whalin’, so you know it’s gonna be good stuff. Is it related somehow to the Far Side Memes group Conor also created? I’m not actually sure, but you need to get onboard with all his multi-platform #content.

But you guys make content too, and here’s the top content-unit from you this week: this week’s comment of the week!

“On the ground below, Carlos Alora readies his 40-foot extension ladder and once again tries to suppress his abject fear of heights. It’s Thursday. And the house plants Mary had firmly instructed him to place on the outside of the fixed windows in her apartment… Must. Be. Watered. The metal creaks ominously as, with the watering can clenched in his teeth, Carlos shakily begins his weekly climb from hell.” –Charterstoned

The runners up are also hilarious!

“I hope this arc ends with Rachel Ray or Martha Stewart or some other big-shot suing Mary for branding a recipe that she wrote down off of the TV one morning. After all, seeing what Mary ‘can’ cook, this is the only plausible explanation.” –Dimensionalotter

“I cherish Mary’s bitterness in the penultimate panel. ‘Those assholes who read Ask Wendy never bother to ask, Hey, Wendy, what’s your real name? They actually think Wendy is a real person. Can you imagine that? Jesus, what a bunch of dumbshits.’” –Joe Blevins

“Oenophiles the world around recommend a dog’s bed for long term wine storage.” –nescio

“Well, you heard it here first: Ed is so careless with his pills that he is singlehandedly driving up the price of pharmaceuticals at a national level. While those dopes in Washington argue over risk pools and pre-existing conditions, they could solve the whole thing with just one well-aimed drone strike.” –pugfuggly

“Wow; Gil Thorp gives a big hint about its politics in the second panel of today’s strip, which features a black hand throwing a white towel. The Black Hand, of course, supported a unified Serbia and is best known for the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which ignited the First World War. But here, the Black Hand is throwing the white flag, the traditional symbol of surrender. Down with the Black Hand, down with unified Serbia, eh, Gil? I knew from the start that you were Herzegovinian nationalist. I bet Thorp is the name they gave you at Ellis Island because the immigration officer couldn’t figure out all the diacritics.” –Voshkod

“You’d think after 50 years of this annual tradition of celebrating New Years on February 5th by devouring an entire box of moldy, ancient candy that his wife would be vaguely aware of it.” –Aphthakid

“‘I like the Beatles.’ ‘I eat beetles every day!’ ‘I like the ’Stones.’ ‘I spit those out.’ ‘I like The Who.’ ‘What?’ ‘No, Who.’ ‘Who… who?’ ‘Oh, are you part owl?'” –Hogenmogen

“Rex is now impressed because, to him, a ‘hobby shop’ is what he calls a medical practice.” –Where’s Rocky?

“Everything about the Perfesser’s date — from his not-so-subtle ‘I like the KINKS and DATING MYSELF’ hints to her cruel undatelike demeanor and use of the taunting double-entendre ‘KEEP BORING ME’ — suggests this is an elaborate humiliation roleplay organized through whatever the bird equivalent of Craigslist is (Craneslist? Eggslist?). Everything, that is, except the pink turtleneck.” –Schroduck

“[folds arms, looks bored] Whatever, I’ve never even heard of the Doors. I don’t own a TV, and I have a lot of thoughts on David Foster Wallace. This date is supposed to be going badly for me.” –Dan

“Crankshaft has the form of a three-panel comic with a punchline, but the payoff is just Crankshaft’s confused face, his veneer of belligerence stripped away to reveal a vulnerable old man whose body is breaking down so much he can’t even handle the medicine that’s supposed to slow the breakdown of his body. Which is punchline enough! God knows it gives me more pleasure than all the strip’s jokes combined.” –matt w

“Quick question: A school bus isn’t considered ‘heavy’ machinery, is it?” –BigTed

“Sell me a muffin and I eat for a day, Mary. But give me a muffin and June Brigman draws ninety-eight panels of me sitting on your couch over the course of three months.” –Hopester

“Mary does not care if her name will adorn her muffins for she knows that each one will be shaped like her iconic head, lovingly mass baked in MW-shaped muffin tins. And each one will come with the slogan, ‘Eat, this is my body’ because Mary is the true savior of ungrateful, sinful humanity.” –McCapwell

“Looks like the setup for a murder mystery, Dial B for Boring.” –Liam

“‘Did you listen to to Jorge’s game on the radio last night?’ ‘No, I’m out of potatoes and couldn’t power up my wireless set. Seriously… radio?’” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

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 would like to buy advertising on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get a text shoutout in these posts, get the details on my BuySellAds page.

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Hello all! Your COTW in a moment, but first, a link that may be of interest: I wrote an encomium of sorts for Mort Walker over at the Village Voice, focusing on how General Halftrack came to stop sexually harassing Miss Buxley. Check it out!

Also, I wanted to give a sendoff to Piranha Club, formerly Ernie, which is hanging up the pen after 30 years this week. I never really discussed it here but it’s always been on my list of strips I enjoy, so let’s wish Bud Grace well in retirement!

One person who isn’t going anywhere is me, and I’ll be continuing the stately rhythms of comments of the week and comment blogging forever. Here’s this week’s top comment!

“Rex trusts Lou for legal advice because Lou arranges the fake law books on his shelves by color, which is how Rex arranges the fake medical books in his library. Lou considers child custody cases, along with grand theft auto and capital gains tax, to be ‘yellow’, which coincidentally is Rex’s diagnosis for male pattern baldness, dementia, and strep throat.” –seismic-2

And here’s the hilarious runners up!

“The only part of this I like is the brief moment when Dennis struggles to come up with an answer to Margaret’s question. ‘I do … It’s a … new TV channel.’ It’s like he’s thinking, ‘Must not show weakness in front of Margaret.’” –Joe Blevins

“The greatest menace Dennis ever pulled was convincing the world that he wasn’t a plugger.” –livingonvideo

“Yep, I think the main problem was that we gave you these helmet-shaped hats instead of actual helmets. Felt just doesn’t absorb the shock that well, I guess. Well, live and learn!” –pugfuggly

“Not in this universe. If it sounds like that response doesn’t make sense, just remember that I’ve taken a LOT of universes to the head in this trauma.” –JJ48

“This is Mark Trail. It’s OK if a dental lab technician looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy, as long as the Crested Caracara that will eventually feast on her entrails is field-guide quality.” –Richardf8

“He’s run from the swamp to a downtown hospital. He’s given blood and received blood. He’s not turning into the Hulk again anytime soon. Do you think that maybe it might be time to put some clothes on?” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A tree, a rock, a garbage pail,
Beside the barracks,
Beside the lake, next to the Sarge,
Confused and standing in the breeze.” –Voshkod

“You ever notice how there are never any ‘muffin actors’, just ‘muffin stars?’” –The Mighty Untrained FOOZLE

“One of the nice things about not really paying attention to a comic is I can read today’s strip and imagine Randy’s talking about his daughter as the one who escaped federal prison and now he’s hoarding a minuscule fugitive, which sounds more exciting than just sitting around polishing his kid with a pair of tighty whities.” –Spunky the Wonder Squid

“‘The more the merrier!’ says Rex, laying the groundwork for some future swap action.” –Pozzo

“‘So, Jeff, I’m wearing my frilliest pink robe…’ ‘Mary, you’ve got to cash in on this muffin thing! Ted has seen every episode of Shark Tank so he knows what he’s talking about!’ ‘We can talk about that later. Right now, I’m about to get into my big, double bed all alone. If only…’ ‘Mary, the muffins! You could be spoken of in the same breath as Dolly Madison, Little Debbie, Bob Entenmann, the titans of baked goods!’ ‘…Goddamnit, Jeff.’ [click]” –Aphthakid

“Agatha Christie’s characters are usually rentiers who, thanks to some vaguely defined inheritance, do not work for a living and can spend all their time committing murder, doing activities that will make them suspect of murder, or solving murders. What I am saying is that Mary Worth is Miss Marple in a universe where nothing interesting happens.” –Ettorre

“There’s only one way to convince Ms. Worth to become a famous muffin entrepreneur: Tell her the name of the brand will be ‘Thank You, Mary!’ Then she’ll finally get the one thing she’s always desired, which is to have people far and wide say those words. ‘I’d like some muffins, please.’ ‘What kind?’ ‘Thank You, Mary!’ [Mary somehow hears this from a thousand miles away and sighs in ecstasy.]” –BigTed

“Standing still with the ball super-glued to your hands is definitely one way to ‘control the tempo’ I guess.” –Schroduck

“Oh, of course! Saul Lewman! Wasn’t he in that movie, Bat on a Heart Tit Woof?” –Old School Allie Cat

“Spider-Man’s only real talents are being able to walk up walls and shoot webs that allow him to swing around after jumping off of roofs and your grand plan to defeat him was to THROW HIM OFF OF A GODDAMN ROOF?” –Mumblix Grumph

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 would like to buy advertising on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get a text shoutout in these posts, get the details on my BuySellAds page.

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Mort Walker passed away yesterday the age of 94, and the many, many, many people who emailed and tweeted me to let me know are a testament to the huge impact he had on cartooning as an art form and as a business. His Washington Post obituary is a great summary of his life and career, but to me, these are the high points to show how he and the team he built affected the medium:

• “Beetle Bailey was among the first cartoons to mark a shift in the funny pages from the serial strips of the previous decade to the graphically simpler gag-a-day model that predominates today.”
• “He delighted in the history and tricks of his trade and wrote a tongue-in-cheek textbook, The Lexicon of Comicana (1980), in which he described commonly used cartooning conventions. Grawlix were the symbols deployed to convey foul language; briffits were the clouds often found at the end of hites (horizontal lines indicating speed). To Mr. Walker’s amusement, his book sometimes appeared in the art instruction section of bookstores, and his neologisms would pop up in discussions about the art of cartooning.”
• “He eventually found himself in charge of 10,000 German prisoners in a POW camp in Italy. At the end of the war, he helped oversee the destruction of binoculars and watches from an ordnance depot in Naples. His job was to make sure nobody stole anything before it was destroyed. ‘I began to realize,’ he wrote in the memoir, ‘that army humor writes itself.’”

There are many anecdotes around of his good humor and kindness to younger comics artists, and his ambitions for cartooning. He also helped create the workshop model of cartooning, and like many legacy strips Beetle Bailey (which he created) and Hi and Lois (which he co-created with Dik Browne) have long been written and illustrated by the next generation over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, so I look forward to making fun of them for years to come. But think of Mort the next time you see a grawlix or a briffit.