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Apologies to everyone who contributed to the monstrously long holiday thread, but I generally don’t include comments posted in my absence in my considerations for COTW. I was going to give Icepick Jones another week at the top, but there’s been a rash of comments that made me laugh from the last couple of days, most of them Wilbur-related; thus, I give you your comment of the … well, the last 48 hours or so, really:

“I gotta say, most of Wilbur and Kurt’s dialog reads more like ‘online affair awkwardly transitioning to the real world’ than ‘father and son reunion.'” –Steve S

And the funny runners up!

“The Sunday FW lately always appears to have been dipped in tea or something to give it the look of a movie shot through a nostalgic filter. It’s probably been dipped in Summer’s tears.” –Rusty

“In that outfit, Dawn looks like she parties like it’s 1899.” –zerowolf

“I propose an exercise: Every time the word ‘know’ shows up in the strip from now on, we read it as Wilbur here intends it. ‘Ah, yes, I know Tommy the Tweaker!’ ‘Yes, Mary and Aldo knew each other quite well!’ It’s fun for the whole family! Good Biblical fun!” –Wasabi Jane

“The Mary Worth holiday strip is the best Christmas card I got this year. We’ve seen some amazingly inappropriate song choices in 2009 (the Frames, anyone?), but ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ as a commentary on the ‘did Wilbur knock up his hippie girlfriend?’ plot line takes the cake. If I’m interpreting this correctly, ‘home,’ for Wilbur, is his college romance with Abby, about whom he had completely forgotten until he signed up for Facebook this week. And now he can only dream of spending the holidays at ‘home’ with his lost love, because he is stuck in his actual home with his daughter from a later relationship, toasting in phony merriment while he thinks about how much better his life could have been. Season’s Greetings, everyone!” –Mollie

“I believe the ‘demon’ Kurt is hunting is the man-thing that impregnated his angelic sainted mother in her younger days by blinding her with his devil’s tonic (Boone’s Farm Cherry Wine). Watch out Wilbur — I think Kurt will only be happy when you are ‘resting’ at the bottom of the Santa Royale pool.” –Rachel211

“I’ll note that even in his college days, Wilbur had a forehead combover, which is presumably catnip to coeds.” –Jym

Re: the Curtis “Crazy-ass Kwanzaa Jamboree”: “If only Edge City could go off on a post-Hanukkah Jew Tales of Insanity binge every year, I could truly be proud of my own heritage.” –GirlyQ

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.

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