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Just a quick note before your comments of the week: do you use the Facebook? You may have noticed little “Like” buttons at the bottom of each post. If you’re logged into Facebook, and click that button, a note indicating how much you enjoyed that post will appear on your Facebook wall for all your friends to see! Isn’t that, uh, awesome? Sure it is! Obviously you will want to click the clicky to indicate your approval, where such approval is merited. DO IT. CLICK IT.

And now, your comment of the week!

“Mark’s hands are in his pockets because he is desperately texting Bill Ellis: ‘Plz call me. Rgent.'” –Brian

And your runners up! Very funny!

“I think Mary Worth is stifling a yawn throughout today’s strip. That’s what I’d be doing.” –nescio

“I’m confident an unread Marvin anthology rests on the coffee table in the lobby of Hell.” –Who Is Dick Player?

“You can tell you’re getting older … when you feel Death’s icy fingers gripping your heart. Thank you! I’ll be here all week … unless I die.” –Pozzo

“Sure, we may mock now, but decades from now, our children will look back with wonder upon the first time a superhero used the then common phrase of ‘Call me Nobody!’ (P.S. In the future, all superheroes are going to suck.)” –Megan (Best of Fates)

“Has Sabretooth seriously been stomping into every fairground he sees for the past several months yelling ‘I know you’re here!’? That’s fairly menacing for a Spider-Man villain.” –chrishocker

“[Bonnie] actually has a knockout figure. The apparent bulk (and its rapid changes) is from just that: rapid changes. She routinely wears up to twenty outfits at one time and keeps switching among them. It’s her way around the ‘you can’t possibly wear that many clothes!’ argument. She can and she does.” –Aviatrix

“Stung by the truth of what Cherry says, Mark immediately enrolls in a self-help seminar to ‘work on himself more.’ The seminar is two states away, in a remote wilderness area. He takes Andy with him.” –boojum

“Look at the ground they’re covering mid-conversation in Mark Trail! Somewhere between ‘You’re always helping other people with their problems, Mark…’ and ‘Now you can spend a little time solving MY problem!’, Mark must have started up about fly fishing again, and only stopped once they finished their stroll from beach to distant highlands, leaving Andy behind to be eaten alive by ducks.” –Black Drazon

“Hopefully, [Mary] won’t point out to Bonnie that she is only able to cry flesh-colored tears, lest the revelation entice Bonnie to purchase something to help ease her envy of women with fully functioning tear ducts.” –Thomas B.

“Apparently, Mark is so alarmed at this sudden turn of events that he has released a cloud of ink in a desperate bid to escape.” –Kevin

“I’m beginning to suspect that Woods & Wildlife is actually an elaborate ruse created by Mark’s employer to get rollicking, red-blooded accounts of how he punched out this or that bearded evildoer in whichever forest/swamp/mountainous region. These are actually run in a different magazine, Vigilante’s Monthly.” –commodorejohn

“Good to see that Mary color-coordinated her outfit with the hoarder’s clutter. It’s modern-day camouflage: When you wear vivid fuchsia and stand in front of a stack of vivid fuchsia boxes, nobody knows where your meddling voice is coming from.” –Kibo

“Margo is just upset she can’t find a Mother’s Day card that says ‘Thanks for not shooting me.'” –NoahSnark

“At the sight of an upturned car, Slylock and his trusty assistant run to the scene. Once they are there Max begins blowing an air horn and Slylock begins spraying the car with industrial grade air-freshener. The horror and stupefaction of the onlookers is well justified.” –sak

“Oh my, you’ve covered every square inch of your apartment with merchandise. I guess I’ll just have to sit on the FLOOR. No, really don’t bother to move even one of the boxes that is evidence of your shame. It’ll be better this way. More degrading for you, dear. Trust me.” –mustang

“‘Does Slylock think the seat belt law is a bad idea?’ Not, ‘Does he think it saves lives?’ but ‘Does he think it’s a bad idea.’ Basically we’re asked to guess Slylock’s political leanings. Does Slylock pragmatically decide that any legislation that saves lives is a ‘good idea’? Does Slylock believe in a so-called ‘nanny state’ style Forest Government? If not, does he believe that citizens should have absolute freedom in all areas, or does he believe that automotive laws are a special case because of the public nature of the roads and the comparatively massive danger that automobiles pose to our daily lives? All of these considerations and more concerning Slylock’s politics must be weighed before answering the question, not to mention the very real practical problems of legislating seat-belts for such a diverse citizenry. This is probably the most difficult Slylock Fox puzzle ever.” –AndyL

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Hey everybody, just a quick note that may not mean anything to most of you: I am moving my RSS feed away from Google’s FeedBurner service. If you subscribe to my site via RSS (and this includes subscribing via Google Reader), you will be automatically redirected to the new feed for the next 15 days, but you should change that address now, to:

https://joshreads.com/?feed=rss2

Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience. If anyone has any problems with that new URL, please let me know ASAP, either in the comments to this post or by emailing me at bio@jfruh.com. And if you just get to this site via my updates on Twitter, or by just reloading the page obsessively until I put up new posts, feel free to ignore this.

UPDATE: Did I say I was moving away from Feedburner? I should have said “I am moving from one Feedburner address to another, just to confuse everybody.” Ha ha! But, really, this is all behind-the-scenes stuff — if you use that URL above, you will always be automatically redirected to the appropriate address. And I recommend you resubscribe to that link now, just to be sure. Apologies for the confusion, all.

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OK, your comments of the week coming … eventually! But this week I have an unusual number of items to share with you!

First off: if you’ve ever wanted to hear me jaw with Tall Tale Radio podcaster Tom Racine and Sally Forth writer/Medium Large creator Ces Marculiano, well now’s your chance! We take on the hard-hitting questions in the world of comics, such as “If Tommie from Apartment 3-G had an iPod, would that tear a hole in the fabric of space-time?” and “Has Josh ever made Ces cry?” and “Can you you do a successful podcast when one party is standing on the street in Brooklyn talking into his cell phone?” (The answers are probably, yes, and barely, respectively.)

Also! This Marmaduke is presumably burned so deeply in your brain that you probably can’t remember a time when the image didn’t haunt you. But as faithful reader Jake points out, it’s merely another entry in the awful cycle of Marmadukean eternal return. Here’s the strip from April 1, 2009:

“Marmaduke can barely wait a whole year before it decided to just re-hash the same joke,” Jake says. “Don’t ancient strips like these usually take old material from the 50s, and not from twelve months prior? Oh, and it still kind of looks like the owner-man is trying to have sex with Marm. It has simply gotten worse with time. Much, much worse.”

And yet perhaps we are lucky that the Marmaduke creative team has chosen not to go too deep into the archives! After all, their fancy might have settled on this entry, which faithful reader Brian saved when it first ran in the late ’90s for his own inscrutable purposes:

OK, uh, let’s clear that out of our mind, shall we? Today’s Mark Trail features Mark beginning to discuss his overpowering love for canoeing and fly-fishing in blessed motor-free silence. Thus it may come as a shock to learn that in 1971 he served as the narrator for a book offering “tips” on operating the very motorboats whose noise pollution he claims to abhor!

1971 was of course a very different time. Check out Mark, stone-cold smoking a pipe, engaging in a little battery maintenance while a comely swimsuited lass who may or may not be Cherry looks on in obvious arousal. (Mark is ignoring her, proving that 1971 wasn’t that different.)

Curious otters! Jovial portly dudes in inner tubes! Uh, yeah, I have no idea either.

Thanks to faithful reader Randy for this stunning find.

And now, after all that delay: your comment of the week!

“Remember when Mark was going on about finding a solution to this Paradise Lake problem that would make everyone happy? It looks like the ‘everyone’ Mark was referring to is himself and the Justice Twins, Lefty and Righty. I look forward to tomorrow’s episode, when one of the paper-pushing weenies in glasses tries to interrupt Mark to ask a clarifying question about fly fishing and gets an up close and personal meeting with Righty, followed by a closing remark from Lefty. Sit down, geek, a real man’s talking about nature!” –Krazy Kat

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Yes, Roberta used her maiden name: ‘Bobbie.'” –Aesahaettr

“I think that Tobey is actually jealous that Mary is meddling someone else, and is trying to get some attention. ‘Excessive shopping, is that all? Look at me, I don’t even know how to pick up a teacup. See, I’ve dislocated my shoulder and broken several fingers during the attempt! I need your help, Mary. Help ME!'” –peabody

“‘The Professor agreed to keep the police out of the matter.’ Wait, the Professor had to be persuaded? He more than anyone should want the police way the hell up out and away from his little fraud sex dope skank party. Also, the NYPD now takes orders from shrinks? This is Bloomberg again, right?” –Uncle Lumpy

“Martin’s smile is a dazzling mix of Crest, Bobbie’s leftover happy pills, and ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead!’ Ah, the blissful highs of institutionalizing loved ones, ammirite?” –Black Drazon

“Of all the insane depraved mutant animals and plotlines that Mark Trail has put out, a career politician profusely sweating under questioning HAS to be the most absurd and unlikely. The affection between Mark and Cherry is more realistic.” –Pingu

“Too bad the Hitler family does not have a sectional to accommodate the missus in what could have been a menage-a-trois of hellish, poorly-drawn proportions. As it stands, she just has to wait her turn with arms crossed and looking thoroughly bored/disgusted/misshapen.” –Skeltometer

“Confess, Senator! You’ve been illegally trapping spotted owls and turning them into fabulous bow ties.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“The neat thing about basing a movie on a pre-existing franchise is the knowledge that the franchise brings its own fans, who simultaneous serve as guaranteed seat fillers and unpaid viral promoters. Whoever greenlit the Marmaduke movie apparently didn’t realize that this is not the case with Marmaduke and rushed to correct it by forcing Mr. Anderson to appeal to whatever grim demographic is drawn in by the horror presented today.” –bunivasal

“In Mark Trail news, the Honorable Senator Badguy McSweatballs sure did grab that hanky fast. Where was it, spring-loaded in his sleeve?” –Paddy

“It looks like the Senator’s political career will soon be over. Luckily, he’s already dressed for his next job, Ice Cream Man! ” –Digger

“Oh, that’s rage alright in Funky Winkerbean. Just entirely internalised rage. The kind of rage that smoulders inside you, pulling you tighter and tighter, burning you from the inside out until you’re nothing but an exhausted hollow human-shaped casket full of ashes and despair. (I may have just spoiled the eventual final Funky Winkerbean storyarc.)” –Lolsworth

“Stripey butt is just a random collection of muscles flying a helicopter. It’s like the artist carefully cut out every muscle from several anatomy books and then sprinkled them over a torso-like shape, making a collage of them where they fell. He’s the John Cage of newspaper comics.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

“I don’t read Funky Winkerbean except when it appears here. It seems like a sitcom with a ‘very special episode’ that just won’t end.” –Dingo, the Essence of Purity and Virtue Incarnate™

“And to think we all scoffed when the FAA had us drill for an attack by a purple-clad ghost flying a helicopter.” –skullcrusherjones

“Good God, I know the despair never really lets up, but this week, FW has been RELENTLESS. Are barbiturates Funky’s ‘secret ingredient’ in his pizza sauce? Well, actually, that doesn’t make sense, since drug-laced pizza would have been a hit in New York (Boom! Fancy city-types are all junkies! I gotta write to Pluggers!).” –bartcow

“Of course, as everyone knows, too-bad-your-crazy-ass-girlfriend-whom-you-unethically-enabled-and-who-nearly-killed-our-friends-and-was-sent-to-a-‘facility’-‘upstate’ sex is the best kind of sex.” –bourbon babe, unbuckled

“School of bad choices: those earrings.” –Cooby

“This does explain why Bonnie doesn’t have the ready cash to tip her stylist, which is an object lesson in itself as we can all see the terrible havoc a pissed-off and resentful hairdresser can wreak on one’s orange helmet-head coiffure.” –curlyfries

“What’s the problem? An addiction to shopping or a morbid obsession with clothing the color of baby shit? Either is bad, but one is worse. ” –Who Is Dick Player?

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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