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I am in the midst of packing up my entire life for my impending move to California, and I have a sad story to tell. Earlier this year, a faithful reader asked for my mailing address and promised to send me a mysterious art project. Several weeks later, a box appeared at my house, literally hours before I was to leave on a trip, and rather than opening it, I stuck it in our storage room downstairs, intending to check it out later. Did I remember to do so when I got home? Dear reader, I did not.

This box was rediscovered just as we were figuring out what was in every room in our house to see what we can keep and what we need to give away. And then I rediscovered the box, and opened it, and … oh my. It was a Spider-Man themed work of art called “Cage of Loneliness,” based on this strip, and it was amazing, and sadly because we are so space-constrained in our new place (HEY GUYS THE LOS ANGELES RENTAL MARKET IS VERY EXPENSIVE WHO KNEW) it cannot make the voyage with us. I know of a local Curmudgeon-friendly home for it, though, so it will be in good hands. But! Then, to compound my error, I could not find the email of the person who sent it to me in the first place! And so, I now thank them publicly, if anonymously, and ask them to take a bow, and email me with their particulars and I’ll even post a link to the page or project of their choice!

AT ANY RATE. Among the packing I’ve ALSO been keeping an eye on your hilarious comments, and though it was difficult I have selected this one as best:

“Interesting kid. He loves football, but differently from his dad. While his dad would prefer to yell at the players to relieve some of the stress and powerlessness in his own life, this kid would rather try to hit other people as hard as he can until he hears a wet crunch. Same game, different ways of loving it. Interesting.” –Chareth Cutestory

These runners up are also hilarious!

“What does it mean when Heathcliff sticks a fork in a shark? It means he’s sick and tired of all the hype surrounding ‘Shark Week’ and is sending the network suits a message that ‘Shark Week’ is done. Hopefully next year they will replace it with a theme week that is newer, hipper, and more in tune to what the people want: ‘GARBAGE APE WEEK.'” –gelded wildebeeste

“Usually Funky Winkerbean is just a steaming pile… but this one had a chance to approach being a joke. All it would take would be the person we’ll call The Neck in the last panel saying ‘Talk to the talent again and you’re out of here.'” –Dr. Mabuse

“Solution two: Slylock is counting himself as a thief as well as a platypus, because he charged an exorbitant fee, plus airfare and lodging, to come to Australia to ‘work’, under the guise of providing ‘Specialized Investigation’ services to these local rubes who have never ventured beyond the border of their province. He suspects the platypus as well because the platypus is always brought up as a ‘wacky’ Australian wildlife example and because it’s really hard to work the Coriolis Effect into a single panel cartoon about Australia even though that was your original idea.” –Mikey

“Dennis isn’t really scolding Mr. Wilson so much as he is fascinated by him. ‘All you ever do is nap or eat cookies… You… you can DO that?’ It looks as though the young lad has just had his eyes opened to the possibility of a new decadent lifestyle, and I expect his future actions to become extremely menacing, as he does whatever it takes to keep up a supply of those sweet, sweet chocolate chips and pillows.” –Brad

“‘Dumpty’s Big Fall’ is how the media refers to the scandal that erupted after the it was discovered that the band uses pre-recorded backing tracks at their live shows. Their instruments aren’t even plugged in!” –Guts Dozier

“So now we know where Heathcliff gets all his money for fish and unicycles and hot-air balloons: on weekends he shills for the American Egg Board with his band, playing songs about how HDL cholesterol is actually good for you and might even reduce the chance of coronary problems.” –pugfuggly

“This sequence is one of the most beautifully meta-level Judge Parker conversations ever! Sam’s actual law practice has been abstracted away and the readers have been invited to assume that it was churning along in the background, ready to spit out a new plot development if needed. Sam handles the California winery’s legal needs when Trudi’s jutting proves incapable of smoothing out their business problems (is Sam even bar admitted in California? Who cares!), handles real estate and basic contract work for Rocky Ledge while giving him informal marriage advice, and ignores every rule of legal ethics to leap to the assistance of a criminal defendant when Randy can’t handle the first and only court session he’s held as the new Judge Parker. He also had vague but grandiose plans to shift his entire practice to boutique environmental law in order to facilitate sustainable industry on the advice of his pre-teen adopted daughter.

But now, we learn (apparently at the same moment that Sam does as well) that he has no clients and no real work. Sam looks rather stunned to learn that his entire law practice has been a fiction and he does nothing professionally except collect obscene fees for performing odd jobs and mismanaging Abbey’s investments.

And remember hiring Steve Shannon? Steve agreed to work essentially without regular pay until he had ‘proven’ himself to Sam, despite caring for his sick and elderly mother and dealing with his own handicap and crippling PTSD? Has Steve been busily stealing all of Sam’s old, anonymous clients over the last few years by providing the prompt, courteous, and legally impeccable services that they never received from Driver & Parker and now feels himself ready to abandon his nominal boss, or has he just been boffing Gloria on Sam’s desk all day for the last few years and relying on his military pension and health benefits to keep up? I guess that’s the part of JAG work that they don’t tell you about…

And the great thing about all of this is that Sam looks precisely as confused about these questions as we are. ‘You mean that all this time while I was being stalked by murderous strippers in Phoenix and getting implausible deals from murderous pot growers and Hollywood producers, no one was actually running my practice? I thought we had just abstracted the legal stuff out of this comic to focus on people giving me money and how amazing retired Judge Alan Parker actually is. No one told me that unless I practiced law on panel, it didn’t happen!’ I look forward to the personal crisis of identity and self-worth that Sam is about to suffer as he wonders why he bothered with Harvard Law instead of art school and finds that his evening bottle of wine is no longer enough to keep at bay the terrible shallowness and graveyard of wasted potential that his life has somehow become.

And you may find yourself living in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and you may ask yourself, well — how did I get here?” –Master Softheart

“wow

so career

much crisis

wow” –Chyron HR

“So is this fantasy sequence running parallel to events that are actually happening, or is Les just furtively masturbating on set?” –Bunivasal

“Looks like the sequel to Blackfish is going to have a lot more awkward flirting and, improbably, be even more disturbing and depressing.” –Shoe Substitutes

“Is Pluggers even TRYING to be funny? Or are they just randomly quoting the owners’ manual from their car?” –Briane Pagel

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! 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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Hope your mid-August is going pleasantly, and that this hilarious comment of the week makes it more so!

“No more water, Jeffy, fire next time. FIRE. NEXT. TIME.” –Chyron HR

These very funny runners up certainly won’t hurt, either!

“The Singing Clam has gone solo? Does he still perform songs from his old band, The Bivalvet Underground?” –gelded wildebeeste

Judge Parker: “How about two weeks in your own Parisian flat two blocks from the Eiffel Tower? However, you can’t keep the money that sometimes leaks from the plumbing. That’s ours. Just let it accumulate in the buckets that have been set out for the purpose and Ned or I will collect it the next time one of us happens to be there.” –cheech wizard

“Ahh, the problem is revealed in panel three. The shape of Pam’s ear indicates that she’s an elf from Middle-Earth, perhaps an Eldar, who has lingered long in the corrupt and declining world of men, far from the Blessed Realm. This is why everything in this Funkyverse is so forlorn. She knows that none of these trucks will serve Lembas. She knows.” –Joe Momma

Mary Worth: “Her voice says ‘intuitive about a lot of things’ but her pointy finger says ‘I can say with experience that she’s a magical psychic being with powers of precognition your puny minds cannot comprehend! Do not doubt my powers!’ It’s all in the wrist, with Mary.” –Mikey

“So, you hear about that new bull in the barn? Yeah, he’s hung like a horse … Wait, is that a compliment for a bull? Anyway, he’s big. I like ‘em beefy. Oh, yeah, ‘beefy’ isn’t polite. He’s horny, too. I mean, you know, because he’s a bull. Okaaay, I heard Edna got killed, ground up and packaged yesterday.” –hogenmogen

“If Camp Swampy has a hygiene problem, maybe it’s because there are just two small sinks for an entire barracks. And everyone walks around barefoot in the latrine area. And Beetle appears to be lathering his face with a toothbrush. And Cookie… well, let’s not even talk about Cookie.” –BigTed

“Sam is looking through an early draft of his book, Eye Contact and How to Avoid It.” –Joe Blevins

“Sure, I’ll give you the horns as soon as I drink from this canteen … with the cap still on! Ha ha!” –Little Blue Bicycle

Funky Winkerbean: “Oh, I know so many things about Pavarotti, all from this biography right here! Tomorrow I’m reading about Guy de Maupassant — Mason, have you considered syphilis?” –Uncle Lumpy

“I don’t know why people wouldn’t want to ride in a taxi cab with a driver with hollow eyes that swallow your nightmares. Where to? how about the darkest corners of your soul?” –Chareth Cutestory

Funky Winkerbean: “Yeah, yeah, more talk about nails. Say Les, there’s three nails right here! Let take them and this hammer and go over to the set of The Last Temptation of Christ. I want to show you something!” –Mikey

“The Treetops Tattler-Tribune, despite being part of a rapidly shrinking market in a moribund medium, continues to survive in the Shoe universe of ornithoid/humanoid beings, but not due to its curmudgeonly weather hotline, which is outdated even by pre-internet standards. Rather, it owes its continued success to two words: cage lining.” –Chad Sexington

And we must, of course, give a shout-out to our sponsor for this week:

• Self-Loathing Nerds: Humor fiction, news, reviews, and other crap by some huge god damned nerds.

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! 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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Oh hey it’s Friday and we’re back on the regular schedule and that means it’s COTW time!

“I think Momma is taking a Dadaist approach to its own work; a month ago the words were hand-written, but now they’re in Comic Sans. It’s like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, except instead of the Mona Lisa it’s a crudely drawn elderly lady whose kids don’t like her.” –Alex Blaze

But wait! There are some hilarious runners up as well!

“Aside from plot, characterization, and character development, I feel that another thing missing from this story is an explanation of why Tommie and Carol only look at/talk to each other over their shoulders. The only thing I can think of is that this whole thing is really some kind experimental marathon theatrical performance in Central Park, a ‘Theater of the Banal’ played to an audience of disoriented drug addicts, dying dogs, and you, Dear Reader.” –Voyage of the Oversnark

“Welcome to Parker Retirement Communities, the perfect place for your parents’ golden years. Dormitory-style housing, to keep a community close. Watch them race to get the top bunk! Farm-style eating, three times a day. The spry ones get to the head of the trough! And arts and crafts, to keep brains and fingers nimble. Where ‘more zippers, mule!’ isn’t just our slogan, it’s their way of life. That’s Parker Retirement Communities — look for us in low-tax industrial zones across America.” –Voshkod

“The thing that keeps pluggers from running for office is Sam Brownback’s 2009 bill prohibiting the creation of human-animal hybrids. But with his political star on the wane, perhaps the plugger’s time is finally nigh.” –Dan

“There’s just something wrong with the Apartment 3-G narrator saying ‘The days pass quickly…’ OMG, if only.” –Will C.

“So, you’re Les? Well, if you’ve crapped in your pants while crying, you can’t get in my car!” –Dr. Mabuse

“The only way this could possibly work would be for Mason’s ‘No way? Seriously?’ to be delivered in an incredibly sarcastic tone. ‘Look, buddy, I KNOW he’s you. I KNOW this is based on your own story. When I asked Who is he?, I meant, Who is he really? What’s the heart of the character? I was trying to get closer to the true Les, and you responded with an obvious, condescending remark treating me as if I were a moron. Huh…come to think of it, I guess you DID answer my question.” –Erich

“Hey, wanna come over and watch my cat go to the bathroom? I’ve got a fresh batch of lemonade and a giant, curtain-less picture window situated just perfectly to offer an unobstructed view. Be a shame to let ’em go to waste.” –Joe Blevins

Rex Morgan, M.D.: “June’s condition was revealed during Strippers & Clamfest, 2012. It’s apparently not the kind of pregnancy that results in a birth, more a curse Sarah placed on her.” –Downpuppy

“It was a proud moment for the comics editor when he insisted that the original caption, ‘Didn’t I tell you to have your defecating contest outside?’, be replaced with something less edgy.” –odinthor

“Momma needs to realize that this joke just might fail someday. She’ll set up it up by saying her husband’s death left an emptiness, and her date will respond with ‘Help me out here, are we sitting on chairs or are we both wearing capes? Hey, yours just vanished into thin air. Can mine do that, too? I’d really like to go home now.'” –made of wince

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! 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.