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Your COTW momentarily, but first: a merch pic! I know I’ve neglected my store of late, but that doesn’t meant that faithful readers have neglected to take the fine products for sale therein on worldwide tours! For instance, here you can see faithful reader LouieLouie wearing her Molly the Bear shirt in Hong Kong. Perhaps the Buddha can help Molly understand that the hostility of others arises from their attachment to worldly things, which gives rise to suffering.

And now, without further ado, your comment of the week!

“I am really thrown by the implications of Dr. Mike’s ‘It’s great to connect after speaking on the phone.’ Are we to understand from this that at some point Mike and Jenna had a telephone conversation and they didn’t show it to us? Where’s the fire, there, Sparky? So far in 2010 there’s been at least a solid four and a half months of watching people read e-mail, or think about e-mail they’ve recently read.” –Violet

And the runners up! Very funny!

“So what would be the purpose of that Billy the Bookworm outfit, anyway? To make sure kids never want to read a book, ever?” –TinLizzie

“I’d rather just wear wet clothes than whatever that is Gunther has on. Wet clothes will dry, but once you wear a prosthetic penis-suit, you can never un-wear it.” –Darkefang

“If tomorrow is terrified swerving and Friday is the actual impact, Funky Winkerbean is going to die on my 40th birthday. It’s like God just glanced over at me and we locked gazes for a brief moment.” –killercoconut

“It’s called a spider-sense, MJ. Peter doesn’t have a ‘commotion-sense.’ Does this seat recline? Ahh, yes. It does.” –John Snyder

“Today’s Luann is … no, just can’t do it. Every time I try to concentrate on today’s strip enough to snark on it, my nose starts to bleed and I smell burning toast.” –Ed Dravecky

“Peter looks suspiciously blissed out for someone who’s squeezed into economy class and just learned that his wife wants to fuck Iron Man. I’d like to know what drugs he’s on.” –Poteet

“Tom Batiuk has confused Chekhov’s Gun with Orwell’s Boot Stamping on a Human Face — Forever.” –Spunde

“Don’t you pity Margo: her glass is half-empty ’cause she’s drinking from it, candy-ass!” –Uncle Lumpy

“‘Hey mom! I kind of wish I felt more romantic about Gunther.’ (ONE DAY PASSES) ‘Hey mom! I just got to see Gunther naked, and I can’t stop thinking about it.'” –Andy L

“It seems Funky has an iPhone 4! I wonder if he knows he could fix the signal attenuation problem by holding it a little differently — which would set up the next ultra-gloomy plot twist perfectly, as he attempts to pass the time waiting for a rescue by hopping online and staring into Rusty’s terrible, soulless eyes.” –GJ

“Given Dr. Mike’s orange blazer (Go Vols!), Jenna’s smudge-dress (Up yours, Big Dry-cleaning!), and their stilted, inane conversation, it’s impressive that the maitre d’ can maintain his professional, placid expression. But look closely at the firm set of his mouth in the second panel. He’s trying to keep from weeping.” –Walker of Dog

“I really can’t wait until they do the talking heads interviews of Tommie’s friends, and Margo and Lu Ann still are able to make Tommy’s wardrobe nightmares all about them. Lu Ann: ‘I think Tommy needs to start dressing hotter — not like a frigid bitch I know whose name rhymes with cargo.’ Margo: ‘I think Tommy would be better off if she’d steal some of my turtlenecks — like Lu Ann steals boyfriends.'” –LogopolisMike

“The Shoe afterlife is KFC.” –Mac

“I am also disturbed by the message from the Beyond: ‘Bring shorts.’ Not only is his late wife telling him that she is in Heck, she’s telling her husband that he is already damned, too. Sorry, Shoe cartoonist, but in the comics John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is funny only when linked to Thomas Hobbes’s doctrine of the social contract.” –seismic-2

“I think it’s a Mary Worth rule that the ponytail must be in view at all times, probably as a gender marker so we don’t think that Dr. Orangecrush has a date with Drew Corey in drag.” –bourbon babe, unbuckled

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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• From NYT Bestseller Allison Brennan: The Seven Deadly Sins series! “Seductive, suspenseful and exquisitely written… a fantastic escape.” –SF Examiner

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Your comment of the week coming in a bit, but first: several items! First off is a set of classic Eisenhower-era Mark Trails I’ve been meaning to share with you for a while. They were sent in by faithful reader JJ Carlisle, who found them at an antique fair, meticulously cut out of the newspaper and taped into a scrapbook by some child who had fairly bizarre taste in comics. They feature the sad story of a blind colt almost callously killed by its cruel lady owner, only to be rescued by Cherry and “Scotty,” the ugly Lost Forest orphan ward of the moment.

How can this beautiful but useless horse be saved? By the appearance of “Mike,” a suspiciously Rusty-looking gap-toothed boy-monster!

Notice that, unlike our Rusty, Mike is totally unsentimental about dogs. “Yeah, I gotta hurry and sell this dog, or just throw it in the river or something. A knife? Sure, I’ll take a knife in exchange. Now I can stab things!”

Also note the random bolding throughout! It’s nice to know that this is a Mark Trail tradition of long standing.

Also! Faithful reader LoMinang was combing through the transcripts of the Warren Commission, for some reason (THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE), when he found the following exchange between a Mr. Thornley (who had been in the Marines with Lee Harvey Osward) and Albert Jenner, an assistant counsel on the commission:

Mr. JENNER: Did you think it went beyond that, this unkemptness or this sloppiness?
Mr. THORNLEY: It did go beyond that, because he seemed to be a person who would go out of his way to get into trouble, get some officer or staff sergeant mad at him. He would make wise remarks. He had a general bitter attitude towards the Corps. He used to pull his hat down over his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at anything around him and go walking around very Beetle Bailey style.
Mr. JENNER: What is Beetle Bailey?
Mr. THORNLEY: Beetle Bailey is a comic strip character who walks around with his hat over his eyes much as Oswald did.
MR. JENNER: You want to keep in mind, Mr. Thornley, I am an old man and there are things I don’t pick up or get hep to.
Mr. THORNLEY: This is nothing recent. This is a comic strip that has been around quite a few years now.

The idea that a U.S. government official, either in earnest or sardonically, admitted on the record that he is not “hep to” Beetle Bailey is surely one of the greatest pieces of information I have encountered this week.

And, in other Beetle Bailey news, thanks to the many, many readers who sent me the link to the recently released collection of Mort Walker’s filthy sexy cartoons. Not safe for work, or for people who are trying very hard not to think about General Halftrack’s inner sexual life!

And now, your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Somehow I don’t think the tagline ‘Supports the weight of an average woman!’ is going to sell many shoes.” –ks

And your runners up! Also hilarious!

“Dick Tracy invariably gives us three images, one of which is Dick. I call it, ‘Dick Tracy and the Two Other Things.’” –Uncle Lumpy

“Dick Tracy doesn’t seem to tell stories in the usual sequential way. You get an insane setup at the beginning and a gruesome death at the end, but every thing in between is just short, violent, vignettes in random order.” –Andy L

“The Parkers are not !ing. The !s are coming from Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, because Tony Stark is describing Mary Jane as ‘talented,’ and they totally are not writing her that way.” –Joe Btfsplk

“Surely the ‘Havin’ a good time’ part starts for his parents after they dump him with his new family?” –Baron Bizarre

“I am positively giddy with anticipation over the upcoming meeting between Dr. Roberts and Jenna Thomas. I envision it going something like this. Mary: ‘Welcome, Dr. Roberts. I’d like you to meet Jenna Thomas. Can I offer you a blanched marshmallow? A ramekin of poached fig casserole?’ Dr. Roberts: ‘Love is not for everyone.’ Jenna Thomas: ‘That is so true, Doctor! Speaking of which, what do you think of Bonnie Johnson’s finances? Are they awesome or what? Seriously, it’s all I can think about.'” –Violet

“They need to change the zoning ordinance to prohibit misuse of punctuation. There’s no way an officer of the law should be allowed to end four unexciting sentences in a row with exclamation points.” –Iconoclast

“I was thinking that Mary had the ability to conjure an current image of the doctor, like the Wicked Witch’s crystal ball or the Phantom’s Big Red Circle of Off-panel Communication. This would mean that the doctor had dyed his hair in a desperate attempt to disguise his appearance. It’s nice to think at least some of Mary’s victims go down fighting.” –Walker of Dog

“I can just picture the Mary Worth artist looking over the dialogue of the last couple of weeks, struggling with the eternal MW dilemma of How The Hell To Make This Tortuous Crap Visually Appealing. ‘Hands!’ he decides. ‘That’s it! I’ll make them do … something … with their hands! Humans do things with their hands when they talk, right?'” –Krazy Kat

“Act out today’s Mary Worth with a friend. You already know how funny the person playing Jenna will look in Panel 2, so, expecting the hilarity, the person playing Mary will try to keep a straight face while delivering his or her line and end up looking exactly like Mary in Panel 1. What I’m saying is that we have finally found out Mary’s power that makes her a Super Meddler: She can see at least 5 seconds into the future.” –Drew Funk

“My guess on Mary covering her mouth: she has a little Mary-Worth-head tongue à la the Queen from Aliens. And it’s hungry. For eyes. Hence the ‘wink’ in the second panel.” –DevinT

“Jenna’s not having a stroke, she’s merely trying to shut out the terrifying visage of Mary’s meddling. The problem is that if she shuts both eyes that leaves her wide open to attack. The best compromise is to wink fearfully.” –TheTJ

“Oh man, Mary’s totally trippin’ balls! What’s she even looking at? ‘Oh man Jenna … I … I can SEE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND IT IS LONELY.'” –Tophat

“Oh my God, 30+ years of obsessive Fantastic Four geekery has finally paid off with a minor insight on a possible upcoming plotline in the newspaper Spider-Man comic! This is not as satisfying as I had hoped.” –Ed Dravecky

“Only the most hardcore gamers ever made it to the level of Duck Hunt represented by the large panel in this Sunday’s Mark Trail.” –Sed

“The ‘hospital’ has shrunk. From the outside it looks like some elite mental institution or a place where celebrities might to go dry out; inside it is circa 1952 Eastern Europe.” –MWDG

“Gosh, if Dr. Roberts’s face was any paler, I would suspect Mary Worth of jumping on the vampire bandwagon. ‘Oh, you mean … social contact? I was hoping she would just waste away so that I could sample her delicious blood.'” –Josh N.

“I’ve never read a hookup email that sounded so much like a Nigerian inheritance scam.” –150

“In an effort to compete with other online dating sites, Mary has launched M-Harmony, where you’ll be matched on the only dimension of compatibility that counts: Mary’s unbreakable will.” –Dude…wait…what?

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

• From NYT Bestseller Allison Brennan: The Seven Deadly Sins series! “Seductive, suspenseful and exquisitely written… a fantastic escape.” –SF Examiner

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 top comment this week is about 9 Chickweed Lane — trust me, it makes sense if you follow along:

“Hoo boy, will all you people feel silly when this strip goes back to unicorns and finger-fucking. ‘Bring back the Nazi!’ you’ll say, but too late.” –Buck Ripsnort

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Jenna must be a good accountant if she’s able to detail the Johnsons’ finances on a single sheet of paper. I imagine she simplified their money problems down to the basics: Income: $84,000 (very good!) Miscellaneous expenses: $56,000 (not bad!) Hideous pastel outfits: $49,000 (whoopsies!)” –BigTed

“Meanwhile in Trailville, sideburns have arrived.” –Sheila Sternwell

“Is there some kind of drug that you can inhale that makes basic budgetary details seem interesting? If so, financial counselor Jenna Thomas has been sniffing it off her right index finger all week.” –nescio

“The hostility coming off the clowns probably has something to do with Dagwood’s ridiculous hair and giant yellow button. I’m guessing they thought he was betraying his clown heritage, like some sort of clown Uncle Tom.” –BananaSam

“I’m pretty sure Mark Trail is just working its way down to advocating a return to a completely lawless, survival-of-the-fittest society. ‘This social contract, it only serves to rob poor, innocent, old women of their animal companions. Laws did this.'” –Dave

“‘Margo and Luann love lasagna, and they can’t bicker with their mouths full.’ I was praying that panel two would be a cut to Tommie sitting at the dinner table, covered in half-chewed lasagna that is shooting at her from either side.” –Grump

“Oh now that’s just ridiculous. You can’t arbitrarily stick a C3 (Commercial/Light Industrial/No Dogs Allowed) designation in a block full of R2s (Cheesily Sinister Snobbish Residential).” –Hogan

“[Wilbur] is stuffing food in his face in the least graceful way one can stuff food in one’s face without involving a pie cannon or spray cheese rocket.” –Chip Whittle

Too long to reproduce here in fall, but also worthy of your attention, is this epic Luann fantasy from Old School Allie Cat.

Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And here’s where we could be giving thanks to advertisers like you! To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.