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Your comments of the week momentarily, but first: As I noted last week, this summer’s Gil Thorp storyline has been insultingly boring, not least because it has featured exactly zero instances of Coach Kaz being wacky. We weren’t even treated to another glimpse into his love dojo! Faithful reader Loramir provides some evidence of why this might be.

I confess, I’ve only read Gil Thorp this summer when you’ve posted it on the site, but apparently while Gil’s celebrating his success in bringing honesty back to golf, Coach Kaz has been hiring himself out again. Not, unfortunately, as a freelance badass — just as a yard man.

I encountered this truck the other day around town and figured I’d send the photo to the only other people I know of (possibly the only other people period) who care how Coach Kaz is spending his summer while Gil chills in the clubhouse: the Comics Curmudgeon and my fellow readers.

But we need to move on from this sadness and learn to love again, with help from the comment of the week!

“Is it me, or did the writer of A3G have an ‘oh shit’ moment when she was writing Mojo’s lines? ‘I’ve styled everyone from Beyonce…’ Oh crap, nobody in my target audience knows who that is! Uh … uh … ‘…to Helen Mirren.’ Saved it!” –Rumon

And the hilarious runners up!

“I call foul. They aren’t enjoying a real frolic until they’ve shared a sandwich.” –seismic-2

“I think Mary Worth is teaching us an important lesson about the inevitable random cruelty of urban vigilante fashion police. There’s no excuse for what they’ve done, but seriously: don’t ever go out on the streets in a vest, kids.” –Revenge of Chesnut

“That’s a hell of a big piece that gangster is riding around with in his sweet two-door Dodge Aries K. It’s a good thing he has that ice chest riding shotgun to help steady his aim.” –Edgy DC

“I’m glad they added ‘college student’ into that plugger joke’s calculus because ‘A plugger’s idea of a balanced meal is eating three processed foods with slightly different flavors’ would have been just too hard to believe.” –Fanshawe

“I had previously assumed one became a plugger only through soul-crushing life experience. I find it uplifting to deduce through the existence of college-age pluggers that it is a hereditary trait, and therefore one which I can almost certainly never acquire.” –Tess

“There is no way that is not Rusty in a Marlo Thomas wig. Who’s that girl? It’s Rusty.” –Jester

“I must say, considering Dr. Mike’s earlier histrionics he’s taking his father’s revelations with an alarming nonchalance. ‘So your best friend was brutally murdered in front of your very eyes and you left mom and me to go on a bloodthirsty campaign of vigilante justice? Fascinating, please go on.'” –Paddy

“Say what you will about 9 Chickweed Lane and Mary Worth (and I usually do), but as far as I know, they have yet to stoop to using hair cutting as a major plot point.” –TheDiva

“My initial reaction was also to be kind of judgmental about Lu Ann’s pathological obsession with getting her hair cut and seeming belief that it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person, but I guess if I had to wake up every day to the chilling cautionary example that is Tommie, I might get a little squirrely on the subject myself.” –Violet

“I can’t think of a decade old enough to put jury duty jokes into.” –Alex

“So in Shoe’s grotesque avian parody of the human world, you can still smoke cigars in drug stores but Preparation H is available by prescription only?” –Joe Blevins

“Panel 5 of Mary Worth: Best Comb-over Depiction in A Dramatic Role.” –zenvelo

“Sam Driver weight-tested women’s shoes. Neddie had lunch with … some guy. April went on a thrilling, high stakes mission for the CIA, probably involving a car chase, a shootout, and lots of cool explosions. There was only time to follow two of those three storylines. And the creators of Judge Parker stand by their decision. –4 8 15 16 23 42

“‘Exchange data’? We didn’t call it that in my unspecified period of time.” –Zaratustra

“When Herb says, ‘I hate the way this show typifies the way women gossip,’ his obtuse verbiage is actually a psychological defense that indicates he’s lying to himself. What he really means is, ‘I love Gossip Girl.’” –BigTed

As ever, big thanks go out to everyone who put some cash in my tip jar! And, while there are no advertisers to thank this week, there have been some exciting updates to our advertising offerings, so please check those out!

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Here’s your comment of the week — the best of a particularly strong bunch this time around:

“Fare thee well, Cathy. I will pour a 40 of Tab on the curb in front of the Weight Watchers for you.” –Plinko Commie

And the hilarious runners up!

“What your husband is too sensitive to tell you, Beth, is that the government put up the fence in an attempt to keep your progeny from ever meeting the Trails’ adopted troll. The end result of a mating between the two would be too hideous to contemplate.” –terrapin

“Notice how Rabbit jumps gracefully over the Elrod ball. Careful, Rabbit. That Elrod ball is sharp! Why, it is at the cutting edge of humor.” –The Check is in the Male

“Is that an actual morgue? In the Tracyverse, ‘MORGUE’ is probably a commonly-used name for a nightclub.” –Baron Bizarre

“I confess that I am in love with the delicate, moneyed, pinky-extended way Mrs. D’Buckworth holds a cell phone. I kind of wish cartoon millionaires would start holding everything like this … not just wine glasses and brandy snifters — pencils, chopsticks, steering wheels, fruit roll-ups, hamsters … the effete, plutocratic possibilities are endless!” –Dan

“The wife in Pluggers is obviously performing a cost-benefit analysis in her head: ‘I could stab him in the throat and claim it was an accident. But he’d bleed all over the place, and I just mopped the linoleum.'” –jvwalt

“Is Pluggers such a hard strip to draw that you need a vacation? All you do is copy out a suggestion from a reader, draw some obese animals in plaid, and die a little inside.” –Citric

“Say what you will about Cathy but she never killed her dog, finger-banged a Nazi, or used time travel to spread misery and cancer.” –Ed Dravecky

“What exactly is ‘Spotlight on…’ meant to signify in Pluggers? Because I’m thinking that when a plugger shines a spotlight on something, he intends to shoot it.” –wagmore

“I kind of wonder if this A3G strip is the writer’s way of screwing with the artist’s head. ‘Here, design a fashion show! That’ll teach you to draw my characters in Han Solo outfits!'” –JB

“Lu Ann has learned that asking ‘What does that mean?’ buys her a little time and, if she’s lucky, a one-syllable recap or simple diagram.” –Uncle Lumpy

“It looks like everyone sees a different celebrity in the Rorschach test that is Dr. Mike’s dad, and my vote is for the skin of Chevy Chase as worn by Willem Defoe.” –bunivasal

“No, really, what does that mean? Sorry, I’m having trouble comprehending. The speed just kicked in and life just kind of blue-shifted for a second there. I CAN SEE THE UNIVERSE.” –Erin

“Isn’t that sad. Jeffy thinks a pair of discarded boxers is his mother.” –Mac

FW: “When life gives you lemons, move your mouth over to one side of your face.” –This Guy

“I look forward to Kat and Kitty attempting to break Margo by forcing her to wear an outfit constructed exclusively out of designer handbags.” –Windier E. Megatons

“Is Margo planning to grab six pairs of shoes, or twelve pairs of shoes? Or is she going to just grab twelve random unmatched shoes on the principle that the last option would be the most likely to enrage Mama Kat?” –Poteet

“Josh, at first I thought you may have slipped up by not writing ‘outfitting a child in a urine-soaked banana suit,’ but then I saw the clever drain hole at the bottom.” –Red Greenback

“I think that outfit is perfect for Tommie’s job. She does work as a whore on a 19th century riverboat casino, right?” –Joe Blevins

“It’s always fun to return to Mary Worth’s downtown. It’s even more fun than Petula Clark’s ‘Downtown,’ with its smashed store window, littered sidewalk, handy 2×4, and awkwardly-posing yet stylishly casual rubbies in matching pants. Even the lamp post and residential-style garbage can (or perhaps it’s the world’s fattest fire hydrant) go together. Truly, everything’s waiting for you!” –Mooncattie

“Thursday Kit-Kat threatens to dye Lu Ann’s hair. Today Lu Ann complains that Kit-Kat wants to cut it. Those … those aren’t the same thing, honey.” –Anonymous

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And we must of course give thanks to our advertisers:

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There are days in the comics blogging business when I really know that I’ve made it. Today, for instance, I was one of surely only a few hundred people on the Universal Press Syndicate’s email distribution list chosen to receive a very important email with the following subject line:

AACK! After 34 Years, Cathy Comic Strip Bids Farewell

Read all about it here, assuming you enjoy reading interviews with Cathy Guisewite in PDF format, and who doesn’t, really.

Obviously, a long-running strip like Cathy can’t just go away without a big to-do. But with the strip’s formerly chronically single title character now married off, and the October 3 end date too close for her to finally poop out a baby, we have to ask ourselves what the bang of an ending will be. Since Cathy was a pioneer depiction of a working woman, we suggest that she get with the times: heartless layoff, followed by workplace spree killing, concluding with suicide by cop.