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Early COTWs for you today because, like all right-thinking people within a 100-mile radius of Baltimore, I will be spending most of the day at the Maryland Film Festival. I expect to see you there, if you’re cool. But the rest of you can enjoy this comment of the week!

“And while we are on our way to the wedding across town, you will all be padlocked in this room. As the ceremony is taking place this building will be set on fire. Thank you all, we couldn’t have asked for a better wedding present!” –Nekrotzar

And the very funny runners up!

“The best detail in Mary Worth is how the taxi just has CAB written on the side, like it’s a generic brand taxi for people too cheap to spring for the brand name taxis with their seatbelts and trained drivers.” –Citric

“The sounds of Lois fapping her dirty rug outdoors while Irma ‘airs’ out Thirsty with a broom handle could be the premise of worst erotica slash fix ever.” –Sciencegiant

“I guess ‘estate’ sounds classier than ‘an abandoned ChiChis.'” –John C Fremont

“I am hoping, hoping hoping that the ‘big announcement’ turns out to be a hard-sell pitch for time-share condos in the Florida Keys.” –Yr Obt Servt

“Mr Blake is so bored by Tommie’s presence that he can’t actually even bring himself to look at her. ‘Nina is asleep, Tommie. And if I ever run out of the Zopiclone tablets I’ve become dependent upon since my wife’s death, I’ll be sure to give you a call, and you can bore me out of consciousness, too. Now I’m just going to stare fixedly at the wall behind you in an effort to shut out your prattling inanities.'” –Higgs Boatswain

“This yammering jagwagon’s ad-lib doesn’t even make any damn sense. He’s just saying a bunch of words in a vaguely wisecrack-y cadence. ‘Your hand? Hold it over your heart, and pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of My Penis! That was gold, right?! Improv!'” –Doctor Handsome

“Good boy, Andy … that’s enough, fellow! I don’t want to spend hours cleaning that hippie’s Brylcreem out of your claws.” –Fats Pinto

“The artists and color monkeys over at Spider-Man can’t seem to settle on a look for Hardy Laurel. Is his hair blonde or brown? Is he young or middle-aged? Is his scarf red or green? It’s like watching Bewitched if they kept changing Darrins in every shot.” –Mcbain

“It wasn’t a kiss and we weren’t drunk! I was just trying to take over his body by sucking what little remains of his soul from his body after weakening his defenses with alcohol. Actually okay I was pretty drunk too.” –Tophat

“Bobby and Gina seem to associate mainly with live studio audience members who know how to ‘gasp,’ ‘oooo,’ and ‘aaaaaw’ in unison at the appropriate time. Take special note of the two gentlemen in panel one who are looking to get in front of the camera themselves with their patented synchronized fist pumps.” –pugfuggly

“The second panel of Blondie is just a sampling of how it went down. ‘Ha! Ha! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Couch zucchini! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha! Ha! Yeah! Couch zucchini! Ha! Ha!’ They were there for hours.” –Flamedrake

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

• Do you want to go to the moon?: Three lucky young winners will spend 172 hours on the moon at lunar base DARLAH 2. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime!

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Here is something that you might not know, because I haven’t really publicized it much on this blog: 18 months ago, after almost ten years of freelancing, I took a full-time job as associate online news editor at ITworld, a very nice site where I got to work with great people covering technology. Four weeks ago, I quit. My last day was Friday.

I didn’t quit because the job was bad (it wasn’t, and if you live near Boston or San Francisco and would like to apply for it, you can). But I was burned out on the process of coming up with quick reactions to news all the time. And what I really wanted to do — what I’ve wanted to do ever since this blog started connecting with a large audience, years ago now — was be funny, full time.

You can read all my process-y feelings about it over on my jfruh.com blog, but the short version is that I’ve quit my job to try to do full-time writing, mostly funny. This is completely bonkers, obviously. I couldn’t do it without my wife supporting me (in more ways than one) in this decision, but it’s still pretty terrifying. Of course I shall continue to mock Mary Worth over here; but I hope you all will come along with me as I try out other stuff as well. I have several projects in the works, some of which will never see the light of day, some of which will hopefully blow your minds. The best way to follow all the stuff I’m doing is to follow my Twitter or Facebook or Google+ or Tumblr (which is also just a regular blog that has an RSS feed and everything). And of course I’ll announce the big stuff here.

Oh, and if you’re a professionally funny person who’s always thought, “Gee, I’d sure like to collaborate with Josh Fruhlinger on something,” well, now’s your chance! Shoot me an email at bio@jfruh.com. I suddenly have some free time on my hands.

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Rejoice! For the week’s top comment is upon you.

“Is anyone else weirded out by how Slylock Fox is standing? ‘Don’t mind me, I just have a tape recorder down my pants, if you know what I mean.’ *Wink* Wink*” –Holly Folly

And behold, there are hilarious runners up:

“Looking to sober up? Play the Mary Worth drinking game! The rules are simple: take one shot every time you see a person who isn’t white while she is in New York. Spoiler alert: at Mary’s insistence they are filming the story arc in Calgary.” –NoahSnark

“AAH! AAH! AAH! AAH! I can see Margo’s waist! I didn’t even know she had a waist! I don’t know, man, I just sort of assumed you got to the navel and she just … stopped! I’m freaking out!” –bunivasal

“I don’t think Jeff even knows what Mary said. Judging from the dazed look on his face, I’d say he’s just automatically answering out of his drunken stupor. Expect ‘When?’ ‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ to follow, quite possibly after Mary’s already left the room.” –Pozzo

“You ARE way out of line, Nina. Margo has never claimed to be anyone’s ‘friend’, much less yours.” –Chryon HR

“I could be misremembering completely here, but didn’t Gina have to leave New York in the first place because her father unwittingly witnessed a brutal gangland murder? And now that Gina has returned to the scene of the crime, everyone she ever met or spoke to during her sojourn in Santa Royale is mysteriously called together to assemble in one convenient place … Yeah, I know, I’m always secretly going ‘please God, let this Mary Worth plot end in a gruesome mob-related massacre,’ but this time I really think we might be on to a winner.” –Higgs Boatswain

“I was thinking magenta is a poor color choice for sneaking up on someone in a forest, but Mark probably thinks he blends into the background of whatever the crazy potheads are hallucinating.” –nescio

“After Gina ran off from the diner to be with her soccer daddy without so much as a by your leave to Mary, Mary jets across the country to attend a party with a ‘special event.’ I hope the ‘special event’ is the kidnapping of Mary for ransom that no one will pay.” –Gabacho

“That guy’s more of a Stooges Three, if anything.” –Mibbitmaker

“Spider-Man will have to defeat him in a half-assed fashion stand around being slightly clever while Laurel Hardy’s super-power backfires and he pushes himself down the stairs. Or maybe the director will just call security.” –Nekrotzar

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

• Ted Mendelssohn’s The Wrong Sword: It’s like Prince Valiant, only with energy. And a plot. And intentional humor. So not like Prince Valiant at all, really.
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• Do you want to go to the moon?: Three lucky young winners will spend 172 hours on the moon at lunar base DARLAH 2. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime!

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