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As you head into your Labor Day weekend, enjoy this COTW, won’t you?

“The Keane kids have to see who’s going to be chosen in this year’s family vote to be sacrificed for the harvest. There’s a lot of talk around Billy, but I wouldn’t count out PJ yet.” –pugfuggly

Also, enjoy this hilarious runners up!

“Pluggers don’t live in places that have 500-page Yellow Pages books. I call shenanigans.” –Naked Bunny with a Whip

“When yo’ mama sits around the Internet, she sits around the Internet … like on all the websitses … ’cause there’s so many of ’em … I’ll come in again.” –Ian Beste

“Rusty’s just phoning in his stupidity. ‘Some bad guys I’ve never seen before were just menacing me. Oh, look, that formerly abandoned house now appears to be occupied. It would be a good idea for me to see who’s there now.’ Doesn’t he care enough to put more effort than that into getting into peril?” –Randy

“The soil is especially rich [in LoFo], thanks to the remains of all the rotting criminals tied to trees and forgotten over the past few decades. (The Indian burial ground, where Rusty finds old arrowheads, is just a couple of miles from the criminal mulching ground, where Rusty finds old sideburns.)” –Shrug, Speaker to Spam

“I’ve done it! I’ve finally seen a Barney Google strip where none of their hideous tongues are flopping out of their skulls. I am free!” –zaratustra

“RIP Mary Worth … She is dead in that panel, right?” –sporknpork

“I think I see what’s happened here. Wilbur has been set free. He’s got a new column as a dashing adventure-blogger, a world traveler who delights us with his witty observations and scrapes with disaster. Sort of a prosciutto-stuffed Bill Bryson. Meanwhile Mary has become a freelance-drone, hunched over the keyboard trying to turn content on deadline, probably as a click bait to the paper’s erstwhile sponsors. We’re talking a bold new direction here, and papers across the country will now be invited to carry bold new storyline comic The Wilbs, designed to appeal to the male 60+ balding overweight loner demographic, who coincidentally are the only people actually reading newspapers nowadays. It will run next to Pluggers.” –geekwhisperer

“The ‘first ballot’ thing may be a Hall of Fame voting reference, since the kids are playing baseball. This also might explain once and for all the freakishly oversized heads of the Keane kids: they’ve taken steroids, the better with which to humiliate their schoolyard sports opposition.” –Windier E. Megatons

“I liked Dawn better when she moped all the time. And I hated her then.” –debussy fields

“Who owns a suit in Hootin’ Holler? Anyone with a shovel and the ability to dig 6 feet down.” –Chareth Cutestory

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano: For eons cats have strived to express their thoughts and feelings through body language, plaintive meowing, and a filmmaking style known as “fallen camera nudged across floor until forgotten or smeared with saliva.” But now thanks to the stirring power of poetry they can finally share what it truly means to be a cat.

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Hi everybody! Please excuse a few programming notes before we get to the comment of the week. First off: Have you noticed that there’s an election coming up? I have, because there’s been an uptick of people in the comments section saying things like “I don’t want to get into politics, but…” but then it’s obvious that they do want to get into politics, because that’s what they do with the rest of the sentence. Thus, this is a time to review the posting and discussion policies, but the gist is: I don’t really care that much if you comment about politics, but it does tend to start fights, and I really, really dislike it when people get into fights in my comment section, and I might just ban everyone involved if it happens, including you, so maybe don’t do that! I understand the urge to get into political fights — I write for Wonkette, for pete’s sake — but the comments of this blog have always been very friendly and civil and I’d like to keep them that way. If you really want to get into political fights, though, I give you permission to do so … on this very post! And no others. If you get the urge to get into a fight on another post, you should come over here and have a politics hate party instead. (I’ll link back to this post more and more as we get closer to the election, I’m sure.)

But I’m not just telling you all this to be a scold! I’m telling all this to set up some true amazing excitement. Those of you who’ve been around for a while might remember how I dealt with the rising tide of political argument in 2008: by ordering the arguers to stop arguing and write Roosevelt/Taft slash fiction instead. And people obeyed this bizarre whim of mine and produced some amazing stuff. (This one was my favorite!) So for 2012, I’m going to produce, on its own separate site, a presidential slash fiction contest, which will bring all of America together in political hilarity! The site will launch in a couple of weeks, but I need some stuff to seed it with at launch, and you people are all talented and amazing, and I am very sure you would like to contribute!

The rules are that in your story there (a) has to be sex, or at least intense romantic longing, (b) between two or more people of same gender, of whom (c) at least one has to be a current or former US president, vice president, prominent candidate for president or VP, or spouse of any of the preceding, and (d) the other(s) has/have to be real living or dead prominent people/historical figures (and could of course be a president/VP/candidate themselves but don’t have to be). Is time travel allowed? Yes, of course time travel is allowed! How else would Ron Paul lecture William Jennings Bryan about the gold standard, and then they get it on? So, mail your stories to bio at jfruh dot com, and let me know how (or if) you want to be credited, and you will become famous, if I decide to use it!

THIS IS EXCITING STUFF, RIGHT? So obviously I’m fleeing off to a vacation. Uncle Lumpy will be here until the 26th. Be nice to him!

And finally, at long last, here’s your comment of the week.

“Years later Curtis is going to be in therapy for this, and the worst bit is at some point the therapist is going to stop believing him. ‘Okay, so you say she was dead. Hmm. Wait, what? You did what with the light bulbs? I think I’m going to have to cancel our next session. And the one after that too. Yes? Basically, never contact me again.'” –Holly Folly

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Sadly, ‘watching the Lawrence Welk Show’ is the plugger phrase meaning ‘died in his easy chair.'” –BigTed

“Perhaps the Phantom should be less concerned with los narcos in town and look into the real underground economy — steroids, which every man, woman and child in El Dodga seems to be taking.” –Islamorada Girl

“‘Hand it over, girl’? Has this strip been reformatted as Dennis the Sassy Gay Friend?” –Irrischano

“Everyone is ridiculing Dennis for wanting a penny, but when the train jumps the tracks and goes barreling through Mr. Wilson’s living room, we’ll see who’s laughing. That’s what we in the business call menace.” –Anonymous

“What could have been a seriously dangerous situation has devolved into a simple minor property crime. The sheep murderers are also camera snatchers! That will add about 30 days to their sentences when Rusty’s mom emails their pictures to the game warden.” –Mark B.

“Archie proves that poor people leave a trail of poverty stench behind them.” –Izzy

“‘And I promise Aunt Cathy, I’ll buy us some cell phones NOT made in the 1990s with the money from my new job!’ ‘Whatever dear, it’s not like I can even hold this one right-side up anyway.'” –Justin

“It might not be oil. It might be the fog of despair previously seen blacking out the sky, trying water for a change.” –maarvarq

“Any financial institution willing to take responsibility for Ziggy’s crap deserves to fail, and there’s no ‘too big’ about it.” –Doctor Handsome

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• Good Girl, Bad Boy, & A Bet: Abby Abernathy came to college looking to escape her past and turn over a prim new leaf. What she found was Travis Maddox—a buff charmer with “danger” written all over him. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance, Travis proposes a simple bet with surprising consequences.
• I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano: For eons cats have strived to express their thoughts and feelings through body language, plaintive meowing, and a filmmaking style known as “fallen camera nudged across floor until forgotten or smeared with saliva.” But now thanks to the stirring power of poetry they can finally share what it truly means to be a cat.

To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

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Your COTW in a moment, but first, let me re-ask my earlier question as to whether anyone who works at a newspaper who has anything to do with the comics end of business could get ahold of me? THANKS! bio at jfruh dot com!

Anyway, here’s your COTW:

“Pluggers have a vague idea that fried chicken is in the news for some reason or another. Was it chicken? Maybe it was burgers. Pluggers get tired and confused sometimes. But remember when something pluggers liked was more popular than it is now? Oh, yeah. Hello, comfort zone.” –Dan

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Not only is he neither shy nor tall, he’s only a ‘young man’ if by young man you mean ‘Generic Apartment 3-G blond wearing a suit the likes of which America hasn’t seen since the Kennedy era.'” –Schroduck

“Ha! It’s funny because the workers are being exploited by the bourgeoisie, thus sending us headlong to the moment when the proletariat seizes the means of production. Remember: lollipops are the opiate of the masses.” –Nekrotzar

Family Circus: “The better question is this: How is Dolly watching the Olympics live? Is she a witch?” –The Ghost of Jarrod

“Sam’s behavior is logical. When you never have to pay for anything, you might as well not pay for the most expensive bottle in the cellar.” –Alfred E. Neuman

“Dawn’s inevitable book and movie deal will result in Roberto Benigni’s triumphant return to the silver screen as both Dawn and Wilbur in La vita è brutale: Figlia di un molestatore di panino. Cinema itself will die that day.” –Ed Dravecky

“Wow, looking at today’s Mark Trail, I realize I must have missed the entire ‘Rusty goes to the orthodontist’ story line.” –Mark B.

“Why does the artist make all the men look like they are wearing ballet tights? Is this really a decades-long tragic ballet about post-war suburban alienation? If so, let’s get on with the tragic suicide.” –geekwhisperer

“The cat lady dies, but Wilbur lives. Where is your God now?” –cheech wizard

“Really? It will cost $1200 to fix Marylou’s teeth? Hell, it will cost that much just to fix her hair!” –seismic-2

“My mind reels at all the possibilities of the avian version of awful erotic fiction. We can be certain that it involves a lot of squawking at 7am while people are trying to sleep in and then leaving messes on windshields.” –Chareth Cutestory

“It shatters my worldview to think that $1200 even exists in Momma’s universe. Also, teeth. What next, will they allude to Francis’s dignity?” –Doctor Handsome

“I feel like the first panel of Funky Winkerbean was written with help from a specialized Mad Libs sheet. [plural noun] are [positive adjective], but there always seems to be an [word that sounds smart/deep] of [synonym for ‘sadness’] that comes with them.” –Agoraphobic Turtle

“I really wish they had gone all the way with their Titanic tribute, and let Dawn freeze to death, as Wilbur would only have enough room on the raft for himself and a dozen hoagies.” –Irrischano

I must thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• Technomancer: The latest from best-selling author B.V. Larson!
• I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano: For eons cats have strived to express their thoughts and feelings through body language, plaintive meowing, and a filmmaking style known as “fallen camera nudged across floor until forgotten or smeared with saliva.” But now thanks to the stirring power of poetry they can finally share what it truly means to be a cat.
• Nowhere To Run, Nowhere to Hide: From New York Times bestselling author Nancy Bush, comes back-to-back thrillers Nowhere to Run and Nowhere to Hide. “Nancy Bush always delivers edge-of-your seat suspense!” –Lisa Jackson, New York Times bestselling author

To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.