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Hello all! Before we get into the comments of the week, let’s talk about my novel for a minute, shall we? It’s looking like we’re on track for it to be available to Kickstarter backers and the buying public in the first or second week of December. With that in mind, I am interested in getting a PDF of the thing into the virtual hands of potential book reviewers! Do you write book reviews for a publication of some sort where people read book reviews? Are you an editor of a site that assigns books to writers to review and then publishes those reviews? Do you do a book-themed podcast or radio show? Let’s talk! Email me at jfruh@jfruh.com!

Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed this week’s comments and determined this to be the best one:

“I like how the only thing Mary can say to describe the couple is that they look ‘back together’. I imagine she intended to think that they look quite happy together, but that’s a lie so blatant that her mind deleted it.” –Enlong

These runners up also worthy of your time!

“She had just enough time after the hot feeling of her ankle exploding to think ‘Oh, SHIT!’ She knew the pavement was rushing towards her face at an incredible speed, but time seemed to slow down during her fall. A wave of peace and acceptance washed over her pain in those interminable seconds. The realization that her shoes were not as sensible as she thought faded away. This was going to hurt. A lot. But, mere inches from the ground, she took solace in the fact that emergency services wouldn’t need to cut away her very smart hat. And that, truly, made her happy.” –rbmalpha

Judge Parker: “Having briefly worked a job in which my main responsibility was producing and maintaining an elaborate Gantt chart, I know a come on when I hear one. It’s no wonder Neddy’s so happy to see April: any wingman who saves you from dinner with an engineer is a friend indeed.” –pastordan

“I gotta say, one wouldn’t really expect the phrases ‘Prime cuts of meat’ and ‘Cold, hard cash’ to appear in dialogue between an elderly millionaire and his butler outside of the erotic novel I’m writing about Howard Hughes.” –Jack loves comics

“Tomorrow on Slylock Fox: Count Weirdly’s been badly burned after confronting the Caped Detective and his sidekick. How did the Dastardly Dingbat get most of his face melted off? Answer (turn your screen upside-down for full effect): Notice the propane tank in Weirdly’s laboratory. Remember that Slylock saw Watchmen for the fourteenth time last night. Remember that cool scene where Rorschach uses hair spray to light the cops on fire? Slylock does, and Max will now never forget it, the way hair smells as it burns, and skin crackles.” –Voshkod

“Bummer. That was Weirdly’s secret formula for making pants.” –Mikey

“Ass-wise, Gil Thorp sure has a type.” –Bill Zebub

“If using the word ‘dialogue’ as a verb isn’t grounds for divorce, I can’t imagine what is.” –Everything Is Better With Monkeys.

“Mrs. Wilson turned her head halfway toward Dennis, paused, then looked back at the wall. The room grew very quiet then for about thirty seconds, at which point Dennis heard a sound which he eventually realized was Mrs. Wilson sobbing quietly. Mr. Wilson must have heard it, too, because he said something which sounded like ‘goddammit,’ and he lifted his heavy frame out of the chair and walked out of the room. Mrs. Wilson didn’t even watch him go. Dennis, sensing an opportunity, rearranged the pieces on the checkerboard in his own favor.” –Joe Blevins

“Since Ralph caused the pothole to expand by standing on it, I’m expecting the mayor to blame him because he’s a warlock, and order him burned at the stake. Cranky will attend the ceremony and when its over and the air is flavored with burning Ralph-meat, will quip ‘at least he’s a head on the pole.'” –Bill Peschel

A3G: “‘I wish I didn’t have to go to the hospital…’ ‘But you work at the hospital.’ ‘Yeah, work sucks! Ha ha! Anyway, Margo is dying.'” –hogenmogen

“How long will I be gone? Until your forearms grow to normal length, Jeff. How do you get the spoon to your mouth, anyway?” –Lynn Larkin on Facebook

“I’m having a hard time reading ‘isn’t that good news’ with anything other than sarcasm. Of course, I’ve been reading everything Tommie says in a snarky voice for years. It really morphs the character from being blandly passive to passive-aggressive.” –The Might Untrained FOOZLE

“I hope Olive’s parents are exploiting her paranormal abilities to scam gullible billionaires. We have a lot of gullible billionaires in New York.” –Ukulele Ike

“When you have to raise your voice to shout ISN’T THAT GOOD NEWS? in someone’s face, it’s usually not good news.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Actually, I like to imagine Phantom out in the kitchen, purple panties and all, making his son a sandwich.” –lumaca morente

“Ewwww. That yeast is going to get a Jamaal infection.” –seismic-2

Also, this visual joke from faithful reader Crusty Cloaca must be seen and admired in its magnificence.

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And let’s give thanks to our advertisers:

• Bluebeards Original is proud to join The Comics Curmudgeon as an advertiser! Company owner Paul Kaniewski is a longtime follower of this site, to the point that it inspired him to created the famed Aldo Kelrast MySpace profile. Bluebeards has been making top-rated beard care products for ten years now, so any bearded folks or those that love them, please check out the site and try their stuff.

If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Faithful reader CaptainNovolin brought my attention to this column from Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, which has an important and depressing nugget of A3G news contained within:

Because it doesn’t happen very often, it rattles me when I am right about something.
…
The first one I got right was actually due to the Lady of the House, who is right more often than she is wrong. She had been telling me for quite awhile that the Apartment 3-G comic strip in our daily paper was long past its expiration date. She said the story line made no sense and the drawing had deteriorated.

When I took a look, I knew she was right but I still delayed doing anything because I hate to get yelled at by angry comic-strip readers. When I finally dumped 3-G I guessed I wasn’t going to get a lot of complaints.

I was right. I actually got more complaints about the first strip we tested in its place. I have since heard from my industry sources that 3-G is going to be discontinued by the comic syndicate later this year. Wow! Ahead of the curve!

This is, obviously, extremely sad to me. I think all of us know that the soap opera strips aren’t necessarily going to be around forever, but I was heartened to see that the syndicates seem to be supporting at least some of them; new artists came in to Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, Mark Trail and Gil Thorp in the past few years, after all. But there was continuity within those transitions: Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, and Gil Thorp all kept their same writer as the artists changed, and James Allen over at Mark Trail had been assisting Jack Elrod for some time before taking over. I wonder if what’s happening at Apartment 3-G is that both artist and writer are planning on leaving, and the syndicate isn’t interested in retooling the strip completely.

It’s sad because of all the soap strips, A3G seems most ready for the sort of total reboot Dick Tracy got a few years back. A light drama about three young women professional women living in New York, having adventures and romances? I’ll be a lot younger of comics artists and writers would jump at the chance to tackle that in a contemporary way, and it could be really interesting to do so.

Anyway, apparently James Allen has thrown his hat in the ring, and, heck, writing this strip has always been my secret dream. It’d be great to see actual young women on the creative team, though. Could it be you? Let’s dare to dream and/or petition King Features!

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Hey y’all! Before we launch into the comments of the week, just wanted to point you to this brief update on my novel, which is getting close to the stage of becoming a REAL PHYSICAL BOOK! Super excited! Stay tuned! Etc.! But, you don’t have to wait for this week’s comment of the week, that’s here right now:

“What the hell, Judge Parker? I didn’t do a thing to you, I’ve been living and letting live, and out of nowhere you get all aggressively mullet-y at me?” –Dragon of Life

The runners up are also here, and also extremely funny!

“Mark Trail has leapt from barely acknowledging cell phones to featuring an army of amphibious ATVs. I am so disoriented.” –Kevin Keeney, on Facebook

“If the last five panels of today’s RMMD were devoted to showing Rex on hold, impatiently listening to ‘Music Box Dancer’ over and over, I for one would be delighted.” –Pozzo

“When the smiley old guy started underselling himself, I assumed that the cabin is haunted, or is incredibly dangerous, or has somehow offended the mob. Honestly, let’s all pray for Rex Morgan vs The Cabin of Mobster Ghosts to come out direct to DVD.” –Victor Von

“‘That’s eight!’ giggled Patton, as urine and feces seeped into his abandoned car seat. 20 years later, a supervillain known as The Waste Product would terrorize the town with weaponized excrement.” –Izzy

“‘I don’t know what the future holds.’ Based on the alarming angle in panel one, I’d say it holds Charterstone finally being swallowed up by an angry, dissatisfied earth.” –Joe Blevins

“A mildly-attractive, yet vaguely odd-looking blonde waiting at home to surprise the ‘professor’ sounds a bit like a (weak) porn setup. But instead of sexy shenanigans, I’m sure we’ll be treated to days and days of platitudes and salmon-colored foodstuffs. For Mary Worth, that is sex.” –The Might Untrained FOOZLE

“Let us go, then, little Reggie/ When the night mantles the city/ Like victims spread out on the concrete/ For three straight weeks.” –made of wince

“One might focus on the fact that they’re drinking coffee in a field somewhere, rather than a coffee shop, but I prefer to focus on Clappy Cathy over on the far right. She’s probably out there to get all her nervous ticks out where she won’t be embarrassed, and these two assholes have to have their coffee conversation right next to her secret spot.” –rbmalpha

“By the looks of that tape player I would say Ralph is opening relations with 1991.” –saluki

“And so Toby and Ian divorced because each of them refused to let the other take the blame in their relationship.” –TheDiva

“Sure, their words say they’re apologizing to each other, but their body English in panel 2 says that the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? antics are about to flare up again at any moment. One of them thinks this is the prelude to great sex: the other imagines it’ll lead to great sex with Hilton Berks.” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“Congratulations. Sure wish I could get a few days off around here. Much less buy the damn Econo Lodge I’d have to stay at when I do. Now if you don’t mind, some people are literally waitin’ for the 1%-ers to stick it to ’em in the rear again.” –Tonya

“Uh, I guess the contract was written up by the legal department, Mr. Dithers, since that’s their job and all. Why are you asking me? My job here is pretty ill-defined, but in nearly a century nobody’s mentioned that I’m supposed to be a lawyer.” –Cambias

“On this episode of Welcome Back, Carter, former President Jimmy Carter, Egyptologist Howard Carter, H.P. Lovecraft’s Randolph Carter and — due to a hilarious typographical error — Judge Joseph Crater team up to rescue current U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and John Carter of Mars from the menace of the Carter Islands.” –Voshkod

“Maybe Sam turned to crime because that hand up his ass started to piss him off. He is a ventriloquist dummy, right?” –DimensionalOtter

“We were terrible parents. How can we make up for that? We can’t change the past but perhaps we can be better people going forward. Let’s stand on this street corner for another four or five days debating how to do that. The last thing I want to be now is neglectful of Margo.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“‘I’m old, but I’m not good for nothing yet!’ said the 97-year-old comic, directly to its dwindling readership.” –pugfuggly

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And let’s give thanks to our advertisers:

• Bluebeards Original is proud to join The Comics Curmudgeon as an advertiser! Company owner Paul Kaniewski is a longtime follower of this site, to the point that it inspired him to created the famed Aldo Kelrast MySpace profile. Bluebeards has been making top-rated beard care products for ten years now, so any bearded folks or those that love them, please check out the site and try their stuff.

If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.