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Do not rub your eyes, O Comics Curmudgeon readers, as they do not deceive you: you are in fact gazing upon the newly redesigned version of this site! (If you’re not looking at the redesigned version of the site, reload the page while holding down your shift key to clear your browser’s cache.) Yes, I have returned, and have brought this new design as a Hanuchrismwanzaa gift to you. Three cheers to Adam Norwood for all his hard work on it, and to those of you who volunteered to beta test for helping me track down bugs!

So, what’s new with the site? Well, obviously, it looks a bit different. I’m very pleased with the new appearance. Hopefully our beta testing has stamped out any outright bugs with the new design, but if you spot any, please email me at bio@jfruh.com to let me know. (Please include the operating system and browser you’re using, along with a screenshot if you can.)

But the new site doesn’t just have a pretty face! There’s also some excitingly updated bits of functionality that you can explore!

Replying to comments. Way back when I was polling readers about what they’d like to see in the redesign, the majority came out fairly strongly against having threaded comments, so we didn’t add them; however, we have implemented functionality that makes replies a bit easier. At the top of each comment you’ll see the word “[Reply]”; click on this and a bit of HTML will be put into your commenting text box, which, when you post your comment, creates a link back to the original comment. This is easier to understand when you’ve actually played with it, but I think you’ll find it makes it a little easier to navigate through long comment threads.

The advanced archives. You’ll note that the “Archives by Comic” and “Archives by Month” menus have been relocated to the top of the site. Next to them you’ll see a link labelled “More archives”. Click on this (or just click here) and you’ll be taken to the spiffy new advanced archives page! (On the mobile version of the site — more on which in a moment — you can get here by clicking on the “Archives” link at the bottom of the page.) You can get much more granular with your searching using this page than you could before — for instance, you can find all Apartment 3-G posts from the summer of 2005 that contain the word “Margo.” Play around with it and let me know what you think! And let me know if you encounter anything that seems like an error.

Also, in my attempt to keep the front page less cluttered I moved the Random Post O’ Mystery to the advanced archives page; however, this would be easy enough to move back to the front page, if enough people request it.

The mobile/low-bandwidth version of the site. This isn’t quite new — I added a mobile version to the current live site a few weeks ago — but it’s been tweaked a bit and made to look more like the regular version of the site. It contains all the same content as the regular site, and any comments you add there will be visible to all, but it’s stripped down and optimized for smaller screens.

If you’re accessing the site using something that the Web server interprets as a mobile device — generally a cell phone or PDA — you’ll be directed to this version of the site automatically, and should already be looking at it. There is a prominent link on each page that will redirect you to the standard, non-mobile version of the beta site; you can click (tap?) on that and see which works better for you.

I’m calling this the “mobile/low-bandwidth” version of the site because I’m also thinking that people using regular computers who have smaller screens or slow Internet connections might find it an easier way to read the blog. You can switch to this version of the site by scrolling to the bottom of the screen and clicking the link that says “Mobile/lo-fi version.” So, if you’ve ever despaired that your old computer/small screen/slow Internet connection makes it harder for you to enjoy the Comics Curmudgeon, I’d like you to try this out and let me know if you think it’s a viable alternative.

Once you’ve chosen to view either the main site or the mobile site, you should always see that version until you choose to go back to the other. Let me know if you don’t!

Update: There’s currently a bug on the mobile site that seems to prevent comment posting from working there … will keep you posted on when that’s fixed. Update to the update: This is now fixed, huzzah!

New logo. OK, this isn’t “new functionality” per se, but … well, look at it up there! Isn’t it lovely? Discerning eyes will recognize the work of Francesco Marciuliano of Sally Forth and Medium Large fame. Upon looking at it, you’re probably thinking, “Geez, I’d sure like to show my love of this site by proudly wearing a garment of some sort bearing that logo!” Well, your wish has been answered, my friend. (As always, let me know if there’s another form of merchandise that you’d like the logo on, as I can add it easily.)

And that’s about it! I hope you enjoy the new design, as, if this site’s history is any indication, you’re going to be looking at it for another four to five years. I will be getting back to the serious business of comics mocking at some point this weekend — today? tomorrow? WHO KNOWS! But soon! I am looking forward to spending 2010 with all of you and Wilbur’s bastard spawn!

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Your COTW in a moment, but first: thanks, faithful reader tb4000, for pointing out this teaser trailer for the Marmaduke movie. Thanks a lot. God help us all!

Anyway, assuming that you still have the capacity to feel joy after watching that, here’s this week’s COTW:

“‘Loved your mother?’ Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there slugger. There is only one person Big Daddy Wilbur loves, and that’s Big Daddy Wilbur. Second place goes to this pastrami on rye.” –Icepick Jones

And the runners up! Very funny!

“I find it hard to believe that there could ever be a case of misunderstood intentions in the Mark Trailniverse, especially when everyone is always shouting their internal monologue in all caps. I mean what else can you take from ‘I’M SURE HE’LL UNDERSTAND WHEN I TELL HIM A BOY’S LIFE IS AT STAKE’? I bet the the store owner is hard of hearing. ‘WHAT’S THAT? A BOY IS A STEAK? I’LL HAVE TO ACT FAST TO APPREHEND THIS CANNIBALISTIC FREAK!'” –It’s time to pay the price

“Okay, most of us have a tryst we regret but was Wilbur’s lady so repulsive that the very mention of the ‘relationship with her’ causes Wilbur to hold his nose in disgust? I can only imagine what she must do when she thinks about that night of face slapping, ‘whoa’-yelling passion.” –Thomas B.

“Props to Jackelrod! Finally, we have a cartoonist who is willing to acknowledge his advancing age and preclude the zombification of his strip by killing off all its characters! That is what he’s doing, right?” –wagmore barkless

“I’m hoping for a Slylock Fox/Mark Trail crossover: ‘This storeowner hit Mark with a wrench because he caught him breaking and entering in order to steal an old jack, but Mark insists he was only doing it because a boy’s life was at stake. Why does Slylock suspect Mark is telling the truth?’ Answer: Slylock noticed that Mark is less suspicious-looking than the store owner, and therefore must be innocent.” –Poor Thompson

“I can see where this Mark Trail storyline is going. Sheriff: ‘Squeal like a pig!’ Mark: ‘PIGS ARE A GENUS OF EVEN-TOED UNGULATES WITHIN THE FAMILY SUIDAE.'” –Aaron

“The Python’s greatest accomplishment was to infect himself with Ebola while playing with fruitbats alone in the jungle. As a terrorist, he’s the guy that Basque separatists tell jokes about while getting drunk and vowing that their people will one day be free of the yoke of tyranny represented by trash collection policies imposed on them by Madrid. Somewhere in Uzbekistan there are three guys in a tent arguing over post-Maoist agricultural policy who have greater ideological coherence and a more compelling revolutionary agenda.” –Master Softheart

“Beetle Bailey: It’s no longer subtext at this point, right? It’s just text. Soon it will be diagrams.” –Joe Blevins

“Shoe: Ha ha! Lawyers! They suck! Why don’t they do something productive, like drawing somebody else’s comic after he dies?” –Chyron HR

“Maybe instead of just being accidentally boring, the writers of Mary Worth are giving us a powerful depiction of how lonely, boring, and emotionally bankrupt this ‘online social networking’ really is? Wilbur can remember his swingin’ college days, but he’s now so doughy that he can’t even summon up the energy to flash back to them. He hears the news that he may have a son, but it only bestirs him to make another sandwich and plop his pasty ass back down in front of that screen again.” –Mardou Fox

“Mark Trail easily has several concussions from this fishing trip alone, which would explain his panicked numbskullery and poor station-wagon-handling skills.” –ArchieNemesis

“That first panel of Crankshaft sounds like the first line of a poem. ‘Just sit there and be quiet, or I’ll do what I said’/ A single kid giggled, and shortly was dead.” –Patrick

“Dear Greg Evans: Australians do, in fact, say ‘hello.'” –Anonymous

“I love today’s Dick Tracy, in which about 50% of the comic’s space is taken up by hair, 20% is given to random violence and bruising, and 25% is given to over-sized faces and the color black. This leaves 5% of the strip for the dialogue, which is about the most enjoyable ratio in Dick Tracy.” –Alan’s Addiction

“Wilbur looks so angry because the giant thought bubble of Abby means there’s no room left in the panel for even one sandwich.” –Perky Bird

“I love Wilbur’s serious flashback face. He’s methodically and logically going through his memories of this girl to try to figure out whether or not he got her pregnant. ‘No, not this memory. Here she’s fully clothed. Next slide, please.'” –AndyL

“Oh, sure, the Lost Patrol’s all excited now. Wait until they find out that the Victoria’s Secret models have all been drawn by the same guy who draws Crock.” –Pozzo

“Yeah, June Morgan is not uptight, she’s … wait, what’s a word that means ‘really uptight’?” –Trilobite

“Wilbur: ‘Say, what’s this in the sidebar? DADS GET $10K. Hel-l-l-o, silver lining!'” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Actually, if I were June, the first thing I’d do once Rex fell back asleep would be to Google ‘life jackets+gay slang.'” –GG

“More worrisome, though, is that Marvin THINKS a shout that’s loud enough to knock the miserable creature into the air. I can only conclude Marvin is developing psychic powers, and you all know what that means: telekinetically controlled levitating feces.” –avatarjk137

“Bitsy is actually a bigger yellow dog. This nasty little dog came with the grandparents when they moved in. I can’t remember the name, so I’ve got that going for me.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Note that the smoke curling out of Mary’s pot is a bright white. I believe Mary just elected a new pope.” –gkl

“I don’t know whether it’s the corrupting influence of this blog or simply a sign that I have reached my limit of Mary Worth-induced boredom at last, but whatever the reason, I am unable to read ‘How was Scott’s physical therapy session, Adrian?’ and the dialogue that follows as anything but the lewdest sort of innuendo. I thought I’d hit on a fun new way to endure the Scott-and-Adrian love story, until I got to ‘That’s what fathers are for!’ and the nausea hit.” –Anonymous

“Does the moniker ‘Crooked Croaker’ imply that the frog will begin vocalizing or that he will die in police custody?” –McManx

“I am totally psyched to meet Ruby’s new boyfriend! Queens denizen though he may be, my repeated attempts to picture him as anything other than well-nigh indistinguishable from Colonel Sanders have met with complete failure.” –Violet

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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Your COTW coming in a moment, but first: were any of you at the Bust Craftacular craft show in New York City the weekend of the 5th and 6th? And did you notice a certain attractive young lady helping out one of her friends who was one of the vendors? And did you notice a certain dashing young man who was married to said attractive young lady, and who stopped by for a visit? Well, as this blurry but endearing cell-phone photo demonstrates, faithful readers Anna (aka Mary Kay Commando) and Jess certainly did!

The lesson here, folks, is to take advantage of those rare occasions when I emerge blinking from my dank underground lair, and come up and say hi if you spot me! You will be immortalized on the Internet, forever! Jess and Anna were charming and it was great talking to them.

And with that out of the way, here is your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“It’s okay, Mark! My body can no longer feel pain! And my spirit … my spirit is free!” –ChrisV82

And the runners-up! Just as Wilbur and his bastard spawn dominated last week, so Mark and Rusty’s adventures were on your minds this week.

“Today’s Mark Trail has me grabbing a bag of popcorn and a copy of the tide tables.” –NoahSnark

“I was going to say that pelicans probably don’t sit up in trees. But first I Google-Image-Searched ‘pelican in a tree’, and look at that, they do. Then I realized that I had been tricked into learning about nature. Verrrrry tricky, Mr. Elrod. Well played, sir.” –Just some guy

“Speaking of Judge Parker, we note that Miss Sanchez did not remain seated for long. She probably needed to stand up in order to breathe.” –Fashion Police

“They say that when a loved one is in peril such as being trapped under a vehicle, a parent can summon the strength of 10 men. Mark can’t because he simply doesn’t love Rusty enough. And who could blame him?” –gagott68

“Minutes will seem epochs until we finally get to see Wilbur’s college hair.” –Gump Worsley

“Rusty, we passed an old life insurance agency a little way back … I’m going to run back there and help your loved ones.” –Stroker Ace

“Well, if people are going to believe that a ‘dog’ knocked the car onto Rusty, and that a boy would name that dog ‘Sassy,’ surely they’ll believe whatever Mark tells them about the aftermath of the ‘accident.'” –Steve S

“Perhaps it’s just because Rusty looks almost human (by the artistic standards of the strip) in panel 1, but this storyline seems rather hilariously, nightmarishly cruel, with more and more ludicrously over-the-top evils befalling a hapless deformed dwarf while a high functioning autistic man stands around and tries to help in logically consistent but idiotic and completely ineffectual ways.” –Master Softheart

“All of Mark’s actions seem so dim, but maybe he’s just trying to let the Law of Nature play itself out with no interference. The deer that jumped in front of the car lived, so Rusty must die. Nature is like that, harsh but beautiful, much like June Morgan.” –Mardou Fox

“After spending half the day looking for her vacuum, Aunt May stared into the middle distance, wondering when the Alzheimer’s would finally take her.” –kittyloop

“If the size of modern comic strips weren’t so small, Brook’s tatas wouldn’t have needed to have been pushed up into her throat to fit in the panel.” –doug rogers

“Yes, that’s right, a vacuum cleaner! And it’s going to be lights out for you, Sandman, just as soon as I find a … just as soon as I plug it into a … nearby … Oh goddamn it Spidey, come on. You can do this.” –Bryan Bryan

“So here I am trying to make a joke about the fact that both Summer and Pete seem to have the same haircut when I realize that hers reflects light and his soaks it up like a black hole. I like to believe that he’s covering self-induced early greys with permanent marker, foreshadowing the ritz and glamour of Chez Pete, where Summer Jr. will be messily conceived. God I love this comic.” –Black Drazon

“I can’t understand why the store in Mark Trail would be closed. Ample parking, great location … what’s the problem?” –survivor

“Wait, didn’t Rusty get pinned under the car because of a jack that was used on the sand? So now Mark is going to use ANOTHER jack to save him? I so very much hope this is going to be an endless loop of a car being raised and smashed down on Rusty while Mark smashes in more and more automotive store windows in the hopes that THIS jack will save his young protege.” –Patrick

“That box on the plugger’s TV is probably one of those new-fangled digital converter doohickeys the gummint is trying to force us all to buy if we don’t want to throw away our perfectly good black-and-white TVs darnit like when they told us stereo was better for music but all music today is already too loud and those kids I don’t know why they dress like such hooligans it’s gotten so you can’t go out anywhere they got these rappers now.” –Kibo

“So my favorite thing about today’s Ziggy is that it assumes we’re culturally illiterate. Do we really need a labeled chair to tell us that the fat man with a white beard and a funny costume is Santa? The whole over-labeling thing makes me think the comic is going to be turned into a political cartoon and Ziggy will have to wear a shirt that says ‘the broken and castrated American spirit’ at all times.” –GG

“Me talking to my grandkids in 2055: ‘Yup! December 12 was the day Mark Trail became an anarchist. It was Saturday and it was beautiful.'” –Edgy DC

“It looks like Cherry got Mark a second shirt for Christmas. Oh, and it matches all her pink polo shirts. Now they can be twinsies! Or at least they could, if they ever spent any time together.” –Rita Lake and the Special Goddesses

“I just assumed Mark was acting out a scene from the 1989 classic Do the Right Thing as part of an ongoing Spike Lee retrospective. Next week is Malcom X week, when we’ll hear some stunning oratories about how we didn’t land on Lost Forest; Lost Forest landed on us.” –Dan

“Cherry, I know you’re my animal, and I know you need to be loved! I promise I won’t return you to the shelter, at least for now!” –Calico

“‘And believe me, pets need a great deal of attention!’ says Mark Trail, as he throws his Saint Bernard’s ginormous turd into the fireplace.” –Disingenuous Penguin

“By the way, this is Mark’s second concussion in a month, so the NFL will make him sit out the next game.” –mr 12 oz can

“There’s not much that could come after ‘June is not amused…’ which wouldn’t make me nod quietly and think ‘No, she sure wouldn’t be amused by that, would she? No sir!’ I mean, I can’t think of anything, really.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

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

• Advertise your t-shirts here: Find out more about the BlogAds t-shirt hive! Connect with young adults eager to sport your shirts! Reaching a tremendously expansive audience at a very low cost, the BlogAds T-Shirt Hive is comprised of a well-rounded set of over 30 social media elite blogs, who speak to a young hip male and female audience of clothing enthusiasts. These readers are seeking back to school threads, everyday wear and tear shirts, and any clothes that are stylish or humorous.

To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.