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COTW coming soon, but first: we’ve got exciting new merchandise on offer! This fab design from faithful reader The Spectacular Spider-Brick combines beloved Rex Morgan typos with everyone’s favorite getaway spot for Santa Royale’s elite:

A number of sizes and styles are available! And of course if you want this logo on something else, just let me know, and I’ll try to accommodate you. Let your platonic not-boyfriend or -girlfriend know where you want to be taken out for shrimp scampi!

Of course, myriad other merchandise items are waiting for you! In fact, four are on display in this picture from faithful reader Dr. Strenglove!

The good doctor writes:

See the attached photo of me and family members of various ages (two of us are under 19 and two are over 40) wearing Comics Curmudgeon Gear on Capistrano Beach, Orange County, California, from our vacation first week of August 2008. I’m the one in the hat.

From left to right, those are t-shirts honoring the AJGLU 3000, Cassandra Cat, the Jungle Patrol, and Gail Martin. Huzzah for the whole Strenglove clan!

OK, now that that shameless pimpery is out of the way, I present you with your COMMENT OF THE WEEK:

“Your question brings to mind a question I had the first time this came up: why would a used car dealer have a fleet of limos? But then I figured I’d have a drink and forget about it. That was nice.” –Bunnë, Official Comic Execrator

And your long-ish list of runners up!

“I just wanted to let you know — Jimmy’s heard from Shain Tech and Lawson University. I’m so excited! In fact, I’ve masturbated to the point where my hand is glued to the brochures!” –survivor

“Whatever else you might say about Toby, she knows exactly what kind of lame-ass present her lame-ass husband will appreciate most. I’m even inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on the ‘it wasn’t easy’ comment, despite the fact that she only visited one store and then bought it online; the hard part wasn’t really finding the DVD, but rather the strain of pulling all the tattered shreds of her ruined, desolate soul so that she could just barely care enough about Ian to buy him a gift in the first place. Seriously, that’s going above and beyond the call of duty in Mary Worth, where serving someone a plate of lurid yellow globs masquerading as ‘shrimp scampi’ is considered to be a satisfactory replacement for angry make-up sex.” –Trilobite

“So Mark Trail has devolved into a ‘man rescues girls’ story. I can’t express how surprised I’m not by this development.” –A New Day

“David Cronenberg, Canadian film maker, will retell the romance of Liz and Anthony in his next film. Once again, he will tackle the question: ‘What is real?’ The same marriage date, used again … and again and again? The groom’s parents — unknown to the bride’s family, despite their long interest in the ‘wholesome’ young man? Or drunken child-abandoners? The mysterious dark lady — the first wife? Or shrunken into a dark child, locked in her basement cell? Cranes transmogrifying into crows. Swirling colors/colours not found in nature. All the characters moving jerkily about, their actions controlled by a Mysterious Puppeteer — who threatens to end this reality and start it all over again, with ‘changes.’ Cronenberg’s fearlessness in presenting gut-wrenching grossness will be tested in The Wedding Banquet scene.” –Someone from Texas….

“Well, you learn something every day. I had no idea that ‘regatta’ is the street name for ‘laudanum.'” –Nekrotzar

“Man. That whole neighborhood is dysfunctional. Liz never stood a chance. All she had left, in one final act of defiance to her fate, was to choose hideous colors so everyone would look as awful on the outside as they were on the inside.” –Farley’s Revenge

“I’ve got to hand it to Anthony’s mustache for not having anything to do with shitfest.” –PeteMoss

“What’s this? A Gord/Anthony superstar team up with no other characters in sight? That’s dangerously pushing the envelope of doughy, pale, white guy blandness even for this strip.” –Joe Blevins

“Thank heaven Peter has the ability to plummet to earth with the proportionate terminal velocity of a really big spider, thus beating gravity at its own game. He’s zooming through space like he thinks there’s a TV set down there.” –Muffaroo for hire

“At first I thought it was Iris giving the little hooligans candy as well. Then I figured out it was Mira. They apparently go to the same godawful hair stylist — or the aforementioned FOOBification of all reality has progressed. Everyone is devolving into Elly, I tell you. I can feel my nose widening as I type.” –Brick Bradford

“In other news, handguns have just been legalized in Washington, DC, so hopefully someone will pop a cap in Billy’s ass before the end of this storyline.” –Matt E

“Pluggers don’t go to the beach, because after they’ve been wet they smell terrible. Well, more terrible.” –Mac

“Judge Parker: Sure enough, thanks to this strip, my original indifference to golf has turned into dislike, then hatred, then loathing, and now white-hot seething hostility.” –Poteet

“Like most people who want to unwind in front of the boob tube after a long day, I eat an entire plate of individually wrapped Land-O-Lake margarine packets.” –Jesse Cline

“So Dagwood is an incontinent time-waster; Crankshaft’s only source of fulfillment is spreading misery to those around him; Marmaduke is a slobbering, insupportable burden to the Hitler family; and Momma is obnoxious, shriveled, and dying. It’s like a typical day in the comics, only more so. I can only assume that somewhere Marvin is taking malicious satisfaction in shitting himself, Spider-Man is singing along to the Empire Today commercial, and a shabbily-dressed plugger is finding a way to cheap out on taking a nap in his own filth while eating a bacon-wrapped ice-cream sandwich.” –Violet

“Poor Grandpa Jim. He’s trying so hard to leave this world before the unholy cataclysm of puns and mustachioed babies that the Anthony-Liz wedding will undoubtedly bring.” –Dagger

“Toby and Ian are so boring that watching a PBS documentary raises the excitement level in their lives. Even Toby’s Walter Mitty-esque inner monologues consist of nothing more than looking forward paying her credit card bill. Say what you want about Mary Worth, but at least her meddling leaves a trail of death and destruction in its wake.” –monkey.dave

“It’s like the old joke: where does a 500 pound gorilla sit? Just replace ‘sit’ with ‘squat and run a meth lab.'” –Master Mahan

“That Family Circus looks less like ‘Our Olympics’ and more like ‘The myriad excuses the Keane kids make to the school nurse to cover up the horror of child abuse.'” –Patrick

Plus, if you’re at all interested in dramatic theory and how it pertains to Mary Worth, you really must read this amazing comment from Journeyman Softheart, which would have been on this list had it not been longer than most of my own posts. It still gets a very honorable mention.

Also to be mentioned honorably are everyone who put a little change in my tip jar! And honor accrues to our advertisers as well:

• Hip & Handmade!: They specialize in cute! Shop ShanaLogic.com for handmade jewelry, hot apparel, gear for guys, unusual plushes, and more!
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Real comics coming shortly, but a couple of points of interest in a rare midweek metapost:

• I got interviewed by New Yorker cartoonist Zach Kanin for the New Yorker cartoon blog! Our discussion, which naturally came ’round to the soap opera strips, seems to have inspired Zach to do his own take on the genre.
• Speaking of soap strips, several locals have contacted me for my opinion on the latest comics purge in the Baltimore Sun, which has jettisoned those soaps that survived the previous purge (A3G, RMMD, and the Phantom) and compacted everything onto a single page. I long ago migrated completely to the Houston Chronicle for all my comics-reading needs, and now read the Sun only for its hard-hitting coverage of local public transit failures and fur-coat related mayoral scandals, but if I had a 40 handy I would pour a bit out on the curb in memory of the glorious Sun comics page that once was. When I first moved to Baltimore in 2002, the comics occupied two full, glorious pages, and the local paper’s collection served as my introduction to most of the soapers that I cover on this site. It’s pretty safe to say that if I had arrived in town just a couple of years later, when most had been jettisoned, this blog would not exist. Newspaper editors will tell you that monkeying with the comics pages gets a huge reaction from readers, and I’m baffled on why they can’t make some money off of that passion. Put the damn things in a separate insert and pump it full of more ads than a NASCAR race, but do something other than just cutting.

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Oh, there’s always something to go with your COTW post, now isn’t there? This week, we have a fabulous report from another Comics Curmudgeon get-together, this one featuring a visitor all the way from JAPAN! Crazy! I’ll let faithful reader willethompson tell the tale…

John Shelton Reed said “Every time I look at Atlanta I see what a quarter million Confederate soldiers died to prevent.” He said that BEFORE I-85 went to 12 lanes (permanently under repair) all the way to Lawrenceville. But I braved it all to see True Fable, Squid Countess, Trotzenbonnie, and ChattyGenes and her puppets.

From left: ChattyGenes (visiting from Japan!), Squid Countess, willethompson (standing), True Fable, Trotzenbonnie

The Old Spaghetti Factory is located on Ponce de Leon, a street that was the center of a down-at-the-heels (aka Southern Bohemian) neighborhood that is being gentrified as the Bank of America tower glowers down on it. OSF is one of those places that manufactures atmosphere, or at least buys it by the truckload. Brass and tulip-shaped light fixtures fight with a faux streetcar for your visual attention in large, noisy rooms.

I wandered in about 12:30 and met TF and his boys (two INCREDIBLY nice young men) helping CG set up the puppet show in a corner of a downstairs room. Knowing that TF couldn’t drink, I was perhaps cruel in fetching a locally-brewed Sweetwater 420 but it was not without incident. An unattended bar? In ATLANTA? On a Saturday afternoon?? If he knew who I had to fuck to get that beer, I think he’d forgive me.

Trotz arrived next, with her sheepdog Miss Mollie (looking stunning in a pink ribbon) and Mr. T (looking stunning in a green T-shirt) who excused themselves to sample the pleasures of Piedmont Park. Squiddy was delayed by construction on I-75 (see: John Shelton Reed above), so we ate as ChattyGenes looked on, not wanting a load of pasta to interfere with her performance energy.

And yes, she fought the background noise of a teenage girl’s birthday party to deliver a sublime 50-minute puppet show with five featured characters (and two backup sheep) tailored to a very select audience (Hey, gh! She had you! And Big Sims, too!). AND she brought presents for all!! AND AND even some of the birthday party attendees came over to watch!!! Take a hike, Cyndi Lauper, we gotcher performance art right HERE!

All in all, a fine time was had by all in placing faces with screen names. As TF said, it was like CC but in real time. The only downside was a waitstaff that couldn’t seem to remember that TF’s boys had ordered Cokes. In Atlanta? Gotalmightdamn, they squeeze the stuff fresh daily just down the street!! What, they had transported it all to Beijing to fight the air pollution???

There are few things that tickle me more than knowing that the humble Website I churn out in my pajamas at odd ours of night has brought people together in real life who otherwise would never have met! Don’t forget that you can arrange your very own meetup on the Comics Curmudgeon Forums!

Also of note from my in-box this week was this find from faithful reader Matt K. in Brooklyn, who has solved a mystery that has been bedeviling the DeGroot parents: where their boarder gets his money. “I saw this ad while flipping through the latest Timeout NY and immediately thought of TJ. Classy job.”

And finally, for everyone who was despairing that Captain Thunder’s brilliant Dennis the Menace-based Regency pastiche had run out of steam — fear not! The Luck of Dennis St. Michel, Viscount Stokington is back, and better than ever!

And with that out of the way, it’s finally — finally! — time for your comment of the week.

“What does John think a ‘simple wedding’ means? Boxers and a trucker hat? Sorry but YOU STILL HAVE TO WEAR CLOTHES.” –psychobiddy

And your tasty runners up!

“It’s interesting how the folks in Gasoline Alley use two different meanings for the word ‘parts’ in succeeding sentences. That’s what happens when your entire strip only has a hundred-word vocabulary.” –BigTed

“Now at Six Flags: The Mary Worth Roller Coaster! They strap you in and the cars just sit there for all eternity.” –Calico says

“We all know that Toni’s getting it, but clearly not from Brad. I’m surprised Brad doesn’t wear his black concert t-shirt from the ‘Monsters of Abstinence’ tour.” –trey le parc

“A Southern teacher should, however, definitely know better than to wear blackface into the classroom. Her attempts to appear old enough to remember when minstrel shows were not considered offensive will not save her from community ire — unless, of course, the community is made up entirely of pubescent boys. In that case she can basically wear a Klan hood, as long as the costume doesn’t extend below her neck.” –Bad at Net Handles

“Judging by the beady-eyed look of horror from the concessions worker, I think the ‘gold’ in question is a reference to the several inches of liquid butter at the bottom of the bucket, which this plugger bear is shown pawing at, reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh gorging himself on a pot of honey. The difference of course being that Pooh died from complications due to his type II diabetes. Plugger bear here, though he likely suffers from hypoglycemia if not full-blown diabetes, is probably going to go out from a massive coronary during the movie.” –Colinski

“I think we all know how Marmaduke described himself.” –Gold-Digging Nanny

“So is Mary Worth always like this: picking an interesting issue, building up to it by way of weeks of intense boredom, and then ending without any kind of interesting climax whatsoever? It’s like digging for treasure and finding only my own grave.” –Amanda

“I guess since pain and human suffering are timeless it doesn’t really matter when FW occurs.” –CortJstr, on the chronological implications of Funky Winkerbeans timejump

“I see Michael married a gal just like the gal that married dear old dad: an impatient rageaholic.” –Hank

“While I appreciate The Vulture taking the trouble to explain to me exactly what’s going on, that does tend to take the edge off the dramatic sense of fear.” –Poteet

“Dear God, what life must Toeby have had before meeting Ian that the purchase of a documentary would cause such excitement? I’m almost afraid of the day she gets a library card.” –Dingo

“The craziest thing about this Mark Trail is how plausible it is. I totally believe that Mark would give this long dissertation about fleas aloud in a stentorian voice when his only ‘audience’ consists of his dog and some terrified squirrels.” –Joe Blevins

Those of you who put cash in the tip jar are to be thanked and praised! As are our advertisers:

• Hip & Handmade!: They specialize in cute! Shop ShanaLogic.com for handmade jewelry, hot apparel, gear for guys, unusual plushes, and more!

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