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Hey everybody! I need to begin this post by offering an ENORMOUS thanks to everyone who put money in my tip jar during the Spring Pledge Drive. I appreciate the warm fuzzy feeling, and the cash really does help me justify dedicating my time to this site instead of boring, lucrative work. Everyone will be getting individual thankses in over the next couple of days, but I wanted to give a collective thanks first.

And we should all collectively thank Uncle Lumpy for his admirable fill-in blogging and hilarious fund-raising-banner-creating. Those of you who are long-time readers can tell the tales of woe and horror from the days when I’d go on vacation and the site would not update for days and days! Uncle Lumpy spares us that nightmare and brings his own wonderful sense of humor in the process.

Now, some of you may be thinking there there is really no such person as “Uncle Lumpy,” that he’s just an alternate personality my subconscious mind has created because I’m shy about asking for money. And to tell the truth, up until this past week I hadn’t ever met him in person, so theoretically this could have been the case! But when I was vacationing in [undisclosed location], he and I met for lunch, and after a (small amount of) wheedling on my part, he agreed to let me post the pic of that momentous occasion here:

He is, as you might have guessed, a charming guy, and he even has good taste in lunch spots.

Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, faithful readers (and crack father-daughter team) Doug and Miranda pointed out something disturbing about the current Mark Trail storyline. Check out these panels from the March 16 and April 3 strips:

You’ll note that Mark and Cherry have switched places in the photograph! This can only mean one thing: Rusty can control time and space with his mind. Hopefully he will realize the true extent of his power before the moronic villains beat him up.

And that makes for a perfect transition to the comment of the week!

“My name is Rusty Trail. You took my camera in exchange for $500. Prepare to kick my ass.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

And of course the runners up are also hilarious:

9CL: “This is turning into Rock of Love, only with ballerinas instead of skanks….no, wait…” –kalki

“In the land of Funky Winkerbean, Les Moore is considered prime husband material. As if the strip wasn’t depressing enough.” –NoahSnark

“Just try this simple test. Let’s say this woman is the mother-in-law of Edda from 9 Chickweed Lane. Have her hit Edda with a frying pan. Snrk. Not funny at all, was it? Go on, hit her again. Again. You see? It’s actually sort of tragic, seeing Edda in a crumpled heap on the ground like that. Wait, one more time. Okay, now it’s kind of funny, but it took four times to do it. One more, and we’ll stop, I promise.” –Muffaroo

“I’m pretty sure that the two criminals have recently swapped shirts. This is probably their way of throwing people off. Sadly, this is their best idea so far.” –Digger

“‘Ted is NOT an honest guy!’ Yeah, we know. Our first clue was when he claimed he found Adrian attractive.” –AmazingThor

“That must be Joe. He’ll be upset when he learns the kids aren’t here … but he’ll be okay once he knows I sent them home with that nice man in the van. The guy had videogames and candy! CANDY!” –Patrick

“When Alexander of Macedon was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Rocky Ledge is only 27!” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Adrian: ‘2+2=4?? That’s insane!’” –Mibbitmaker aka M

“The sexy picture of Adrian on the ad is making me question my sexual orientation. I think I’m going to have to come out as a dopesbian.” –Melissa G

“Out in South Dakota, LuAnn tries to milk a cow and is kicked in the head, resulting in a 20-point increase in her IQ.” –gnome de blog

“I am shocked that they would even consider eating bread products, even on vacation. That would be a crumby thing to do. Why, I would feel like a heel if I spent any dough on bread, or any bread on dough for that matter. Also, when I got home, I would be toast. I would Wonder why I did it. Wait, aren’t you SUPPOSED to loaf on vacation?” –The Restless Mouse

“‘Madea Meets Blacula’ — funny. ‘Hysterical Girl Tasered’ — funny. How did this happen?? Or is it just one of those a million monkeys at a million typewriters sort of things?” –Liner Notes Danny

“This was a full day’s work for Randy. Now it’s off to brunch where a bunch of square-jawed white guys will congratulate him for his gutsy handling of his single bail-hearing and big-breasted women jut at him approvingly.” –Mischief Maker

“See, the problem is, Tommie, we can’t really tell if he’s shaking you, or if you’re just moderately surprised. You’re the girl who bobbled ‘wolf!'” –commodorejohn

I will continue and forever thank those who put money in my tip jar! And our advertisers also deserve thanks:

• The Venetian Judgement: David Stone is the cover name for a man born into a military family. He has served in the military and has worked as an intelligence officer. The Venetian Judgment is his startling new book. “Dalton shot the bodyguard first, because that’s how these things are done…”

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

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I’m just sitting in while Josh is away — no Comments of the Week on my watch. Good news for faithful reader SF_Reader, who can revel in a few extra days of pretend glory!

But I do want to heap praise on our faithful advertisers, without whom this blog would resort to transparent gimmicks like inserting high-value search terms in titles and posts. If you’re actually looking for information on cancer, you’ll want to check out Funky Winkerbean. But if you came here for cosmetic surgery bankruptcy mortgage refinance mobile phone june morgan naked low apr, you’ll just have to look elsewhere — we have standards, you know!

This week’s Ad Love goes out to Devil’s Garden, the new mystery novel from Ace Atkins. Based on the real-life trial of actor Fatty Arbuckle, Devil’s Garden features Roaring-20’s licentiousness, yellow journalism, systemic corruption, and world-weary cynicism: everything, in short, that makes life worth living.

Wait — something else makes life worth living: the generous contributions of faithful readers like you! So a heartfelt thank you to everybody who hit Josh’s Tip Jar this week.

— Uncle Lumpy

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“What!” you’re exclaiming. “You’re going on vacation again?” Yes, I am. I’ll be back on Monday, 4/20. Until then, Uncle Lumpy is in charge, so be nice!

If you’re mad at me, just imagine I’m Coach Thorp in this hypnotic animated GIF from faithful reader One-eyed Wolfdog:

Or this hypnotic YouTube video from faithful reader Scott. (Great minds think alike!)

And now, to spare Uncle Lumpy the pain of picking out the best of the best, your comment of the abbreviated week!

“Has anyone ever actually seen a person clean while wearing an apron and a head schmatta? I’m 49 years old, have four immigrant grandparents, grew up in a blue collar world where some people I knew earned a living by cleaning, and yet I’ve never seen anyone dress up like that. This must the artist’s way of letting us know that the character is cleaning and not watching TV or masturbating.” –SF_Reader

And the runners-up! Very funny!

“If all goes well, the saga of Ted and Adrian will end with everybody in the Corey family having to apologize for thinking Ted’s a conman, but only just before Ted is horsewhipped in Charterstone’s public square for allowing his identity to be stolen. FYI, if Ted is put in the Charterstone pool and yet floats, the punishment will be far, far worse.” –Frank Parsnip

“I was gonna send something to Josh about Garfield self-plagiarizing, but I didn’t have time to scan every Garfield strip ever published.” –Chupper

“Gil will, of course, regress to being a six year old and talk in an adorable lisp. The scenes where he calls Mimi ‘mom’ should be amusingly uncomfortable.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“[The Pluggers chicken-lady] appears to be of the same zoological family as the birds in Shoe. They seem to have evolved fleshy lumps where their beaks should be. And hands, of course. It’s all a natural progression, leading ultimately to a Ziggy.” –un malpaso

“So, does Rusty go back to school soon, assuming a public school system exists near Lost Forest? Or is the realm like a reverse-Narnia, always summer but never fun?” –cj

“Sunday’s Mark Trail, in a rare instance of continuity, will feature the rare Orange-Bellied Punchy-Con. ‘Modern technology seems destined to doom this good-natured cash-flinger … but some woodsmen know to set out its favorite treat, Monstrouschild’s Cameras, to encourage this reclusive omnivore to dig a home in a sheltered habitat!’ Then the director of NOAA will inexplicably show up to give Mark an award in the last panel.” –Dragon of Life

“I’m not sure if Rusty’s death-mask grin in the last panel is supposed to indicate one of those ‘Sure, Dad!’ fake smiles (while he’s really calculating how quickly he can reach the border of the Lost Forest and be free) or if it means the muscle-contracting poison in Cherry’s cookies is starting to set in.” –Eldaglass

“Looking at the background of Mark Trail gives me a headache. ‘You shouldn’t be going too far from Lost Forst alone … but feel free to teleport between this room made of rough-hewn logs in panel 1, a featureless beige nothingness in panel 2, and outdoors in panel 3!’ Then again, Mark is himself a sort of featureless beige nothingness.” –Nomstrosity

“Uh-oh: Gil’s going to lose his ‘coachy sense’!” –Gal Friday

“Today’s Pluggers is a goddamn lie; pluggers do not send letters because pluggers are illiterate. At least, that’s the only valid explanation for why they didn’t lynch Gary Brookins years ago.” –Captain Thunder

“That’s sort of the tagline for Momma, isn’t it? ‘Momma: Eventually your soul will scab over.'” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Sometimes I think that Apartment 3-G is really an advertisement form Ikea. ‘To the left of the unimaginably boring woman, you can see our new Blue Curtains #3898 which complement any generic apartment of up-and-coming middle-classers.’ That’s our Tommie, making uninteresting objects interesting by mere comparison.” –Jeremiah

“That guy in today’s Momma apparently has a spare organ that allows him to poop a chair out of his butt when needed, and retract it when he doesn’t.” –Patrick

“Clearly the ‘organs’ to which the man is referring can only be two things: 1) He is a pipe organ salesman, or 2) He is aware of her need to devour human organs.” –Sarah

“They’ve already got stimulus money creating jobs in Judge Parker? Mark this day — it is the only time we’ll ever see anything in Judge Parker work faster than in real life.” –rhymes with puck

“Poor Ruby, seeking a cup of Margo’s urine but she isn’t home. Maybe a bottle of Tommie’s tears will do the trick.” –Dingo

“If I had a potato gun and access to a third-story window, I would shoot baseballs at Gil Thorp, too.” –survivor

“Billy’s winsomely ignorant remark was met with a slurred but fairly enthusiastic ‘you got that right, kid’ from the drunken derelict relieving himself in a nearby corner of the bus station in which his parents had abandoned him. The saddest part though, really, is that he’s not even reading Spider-Man.” –Violet

“Tommorow’s Spider-Man should have Spidey reading the comics and commenting: ‘Well it’s a good thing Billy’s parents weren’t afraid of cantaloupes!’ Although it’s probably just a pipe dream, as not only does Spidey lack the wit but I’m pretty sure he’s also illiterate.” –It’s time to pay the price

“The reason Peter Parker’s biological parents did not raise him is that there was something they wanted to watch on TV at the time.” –Nekrotzar

See you in a week or so! Don’t trash the place!