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For reasons that I cannot explain, terrible hillbilly stereotype Snuffy Smith and his kin have been popping up more frequently than usual here of late. Thus, I suppose it’s appropriate to preface this week’s COTW with a couple of interesting bits of Snuffiana from readers. First up is the title sequence from the (hopefully short-lived) Snuffy Smith animated cartoon, in which the title character lets loose a series of squawks that will haunt your dreams:

When you hear “Aw Aw AWWW” in your head over and over again for the next six to eight weeks, you can thank faithful reader Muffaroo.

Since surely that’s only whetted your appetite for all things Snuffy, I now present to you, thanks to faithful reader Jeff and the good folks at Archive.org, the first Snuffy Smith full-length film, 1942’s Private Snuffy Smith, in which our hero joins the army to defeat the forces of Fascism and make the world safe for democracy escape the revenuers.

Even the comely she-rustic in the first scene couldn’t get me through more than five minutes of this, but perhaps you’ll have more stamina. Sadly, Archive.org has not archived this film’s sequel, the awesomely titled Hillbilly Blitzkrieg.

Also, in non-Snuffy Smith news, faithful reader Proco was kind enough to send some scans from The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art, a 1974 book he picked up at a used book sale. Please enjoy this 1959 strip, in which Mary Worth smugly enjoys the debasement of her defeated enemy Connie, only to stiffen in shock when the woman tries to touch her.

And, finally, remember that you still have a few more hours to vote in the 2008 Weblog Awards! Don’t forget to vote for me for Best Humor Blog, Medium Large for Best Comic Strip, and the The Bilerco Project for LGBT blog.

And now, with all that out of the way: the COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Do you think Mark even knows that he’s married? Maybe he’s holding out hope that Cherry, like most of the other visitors in his home, will eventually regain her strength and find her way back to her natural habitat. That look in the last panel seems to say ‘Oh, no! That one’s still here! And her scent is beginning to attract others of her species.'” –One-Eyed Wolfdog

And the runners up:

“So the moral of this years Curtis Kwanzaa fable is ‘if you don’t want to vomit three-eyed frogs, be sure to feed cheese to the tree stump.’ It’s like Aesop, if he’d suffered a catastrophic head wound and developed aphasia.” –fillmoreeast

“A chair with a purse perched atop it screams ‘Bachelor’ to Margo? That may explain why she’s still unmarried. And I don’t mean because furniture shouts at her, although that’s also not a bad explanation for a lot of things about Margo.” –DaveyK

“At least today’s The Phantom shows us how to aggressively hold a flashlight at someone/thing.” –kelsey

Spider-Man: “No Electro! Don’t Electrocute me! And no, Murdero! Don’t Murder me! But as for you, Fellatio…” –lettuce

“Oh, Harry. These kids are in Funky Winkerbean. They know they’re not invulnerable to anything.” –Just Me

“Man, that Frank Griffin sure doesn’t give a lot, does he? The absolute farthest he is willing to go is ‘I didn’t want Greg to die.’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lynn. I didn’t necessarily specifically wish for your only friend to die horribly per se. I would have been perfectly content to see him, say, imprisoned or shot into space.'” –Violet

“I do have to applaud Moy for making Frank such a cartoonishly horrible person that we cheer for Mary and her meddling, life-wrecking ways. That’s art, man.” –Zaq

“Reference to Hootin’ Holler + reference to Mark and bestiality + owl’s knowing look = Kruegeresque nightmares lasting well into the spring.” –Patrick

“Sam Driver, the Deepak Chopra of total emotional insensitivity, is giving us a master class in numbness right there in panel 3. ‘Yeah, yeah … face, knife … uh-huh … sounds rough … Say, is there a Jamba Juice around here?'” –Joe Blevins

“Say what you will about Judge Parker, but the artist has perfectly captured every detail of an attractive-looking Scottsdale condo building. Does the tourist board know about this? Nice digs, hot policewomen, Sam Driver leaving town…” –BigTed

“What? Mark Trail isn’t written and directed by David Lynch? Then what’s with the weird perspective, the improbable plot twists, the lack of coherent narrative, the leeringly evil mustachioed villains, the wooden and emotionally castrated protagonist, the goofy old men proffering incomprehensible wisdom, the talking animals, and the inscrutable floating Jack Elrod ball? Oh — and the misshapen, lumpen-headed children!?!” –Comrade Denny

“I still think Patty has pubic lice. And if she thinks Mark and Cherry will be any help, she’s crazy. They are both hairless below the neckline, and their blood is pale green and fatal to inverts. That’s why Mark never has to worry about ticks.” –Poteet

“If that box contains a Tiffany engagement ring, it’s the biggest one known to man. Hopefully Eric will hire a sherpa to accompany Margo everywhere and support her bejeweled hand.” –left of the pyle

“Tess’s geometric earlobes match her planar mono-tooth. If I weren’t a real person, I’d totally date her. She’s the most perfect creature ever to escape from 2-dimensional Euclidean space.” –Squid Vicious

“I don’t follow Mark Trail except when it’s posted here, so I may have missed something, but what the hell happened to that kid who looked like Howdy Doody: The Dark Side? Rusty, I think his name was. Did he just wander off into the woods and die? Did Andy eat him? Did our hero chalk it up to natural selection because the kid’s hair wasn’t glossy and rigid enough for the standards of the Lost Forest?” –Calvinball Forever!

“I’ve recently noticed that Curtis’s dad ends all his responses with the word ‘hoot’. It makes me inexplicably angry. LOL.” –Ginger Yellow

“Even more lovable than the baby blue smocks is the featureless subway car and the utterly blank station sign. It’s as if to say, ‘Downtown 4 Express Train to Nowhere, Nowhere At All. Much like all of your careers. And your acrid marriage, Leroy.'” –teddytoad

“I think Lois’ meeting is with the local community theater group … judging from her hat, she’s playing the role of ‘Nipple #2.'” –thehollis

If you have voted with tip jar cash, I thank and salute you! And great balls of fire, our advertisers are bodacious:

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So, throughout this whole Weblog Awards business, I’ve tried to take the high road, refusing to even acknowledge my competitors for the coveted Best Humor Blog award. I’m modeling my campaign on the greatest of American presidents, Warren G. Harding, who felt that traveling the country seeking votes was beneath his dignity, and instead just had voters shipped in to Ohio to watch him bloviate from his front porch (except I refuse to go out on my porch because it’s cold). However, as all campaigns will, this one has turned ugly, and now I’m going to have to dirty my hands a bit. It seems that one of my opponents, the so-called Bloggess, is spreading scurrilous rumors about me — namely, that I eat kittens and plan to celebrate my inevitable victory with a kitten feast. She’s even made a badge for those who won’t vote for her, and taken her dastardly lies to the Twitter, where I can’t fight back because I can’t even begin to understand the Twitter or how it works, but here’s a picture of those Twitter lies:

Anyway, I would like to state right now, for the record, that I would never, ever eat a kitten. I love all cats, as my own pampered kitty can attest. Instead, once my opposition has been crushed and the award that is rightfully mine has been handed to me, I will celebrate by eating babies.

Seriously, though, you should totally read her blog because it’s very hilarious! And please do not start a blog fight with her commentors! We can all be friends (as long as I win). And I’m not just saying that because she also writes for the Houston Chronicle and could maybe somehow cut me off from my custom comics page. Or because, according to the Twitter, she has naked pictures of me, somehow. And when you’re done enjoying her blog, come back and vote for me, which you can do every 24 hours. Because babies is delicious.

In other Weblog Awards news, Medium Large is, against all odds, within reach of third place in the Best Comic Strip category! Vote for Ces to get a bronze medal! It will help with his self-esteem!

IMPORTANT AD NEWS PLEASE READ THIS: In non-self-congratulatory news, I am about to restore the ads that I removed a couple of days ago. Please e-mail me if anything sketchy happens when you visit this site after this point (i.e. after 8:45 pm eastern time on 1/7) — pop-ups, weird redirects, etc. Thanks. UPDATE: Ads taken back down. Blech.

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Your somewhat truncated comments of the week are coming up, but first! As I mentioned earlier, I have been nominated for Best Humor Blog at the 2008 Weblog awards! As I discovered when I rocketed to the top of the list in the hot blogger competition, these things are all about setting your minions free to stuff the ballots, and luckily for all of you itching to do so, the polls are now open! Go, vote early and often! (I’m not advocating fraud; you really are allowed to vote once every 24 hours for as long as the polls are open, which will be for another week.)

But this blog isn’t the only nominee near and dear to my hearts! You may also find it in you to cast votes for the following:

• Wonkette, for which (if you don’t know) I write a weekly column about political cartoons, has been nominated for Best Liberal Blog.
• Sally Forth writer/faithful reader Ces Marciuliano’s online comic offering, Medium Large, has been nominated for Best Comic Strip.
• Faithful reader Alex Blaze’s Bilerco Project has been nominated for LGBT blog.

At some point in the next 24 hours or so I will try to figure out how to put a graphic up top that will REMIND YOU TO VOTE FOR ME AND CES AND ALEX REPEATEDLY. And hey, if there are faithful readers out there who have also been nominated (fully possible, as there are like a gazillion categories), just let me know and I will shamelessly promote you.

On a less fun note: A couple of readers have written me with reports of odd redirects and pop-up windows when visiting this site. I am trying to figure out of these are isolated incidents or possibly indicative of more serious problems with my server. So please e-mail me or chime in the comments if you’ve run into similar problems. (UPDATE: I have now removed some recently added ads that may be the source of the problem. Please let me know if you continue to see these nefarious pop-ups.)

And now: your comment of the week!

“I really can’t think of a single plot I’ve read in Spider-Man that couldn’t have used a ‘special note to perplexed readers’. Personally I could have used notes like ‘that is a magic spider-sense resistant brick’, ‘that fat guy is tougher than he looks’, and especially ‘yes, Peter really is too stupid to remember he is walking around with full length underwear on during the summer.'” –rhymes with puck

And the runners up! Also hilarious!

“I believe Brooke has built himself the largest Suspension Bridge of Disbelief in the world, starting with a priggish teenage dancer who also just happens to be an accomplished pianist, who is paired with a geeky boy cellist who can manage to kiss his girlfriend despite the fact that neither of them have chins. After all that, showing a former parochial school couple capable of having hand-sex that inspires the world just sort of falls into place on the bridge.” –True Fable

“When I first saw the Gasoline Alley Christmas Greeting strip, I thought I should cut it out and attach it to a whiskey bottle. Then I realized I didn’t own any whiskey cheap enough. In the end, I found a used bottle that once contained generic diet cola, glued on the December 25 strip, and filled it with gasoline. If you drink enough of that, Gasoline Alley suddenly starts to make sense. That happens right before you go blind, which can also improve Gasoline Alley.” –Adjuster

“Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, our latest facial hair sporter comes across a dead animal, a development which despite being entirely expected in a swamp full of people who kill animals for fun, still seems to surprise him. Or maybe he’s just angry he wasn’t there for the good part.” –gogiggs

“So is the big Spider-Man change just that every day, there will be a text box explaining that there is a big change?” –Anne

“Spider-Man/ Spider-Man/ Shunted into the/ Past by Stan/ He was trapped/ Now he’s free!/ He loves Aunt/ May’s T.V./ Let’s watch/ Cable with Spider-Man!” –Angry Kem

“The next surprise in Spider-Man will come on Feb. 17, when analog television broadcasting is turned off. Spider-Man will spend the rest of the year trying to find out what happened — assuming of course, you consider sitting in front of the television, looking at static, and yelling at it a form of trying to find out what happened.” –Worthinator

“I think this marks a bold new direction for the strip. Ditch the costumed crime-fighting angle. That wasn’t working anyway. Now the strip will be about how Peter Parker dozes off every couple of weeks and awakes to find himself in a different historical era with different tentative plans for his midday meals.” –Joe Blevins

“I’m hoping that Sam is followed around by large, tangible sound effects for the rest of his miserable days. They can change according to his mood and the moods of those around him, which generally will mean the air being filled with repetitions of the words ‘DISAPPOINTED SIGH’, on most occasions.” –richbachelor

“I know this should really go without saying, but I hate Mary Worth. She’s so infuriated by the thought of a stranger being able to raise his own child without her input that it’s actually causing her neck pain. Next up for Mary: a Vicodin and Flexeril addiction and the inability to urinate that comes with it.” –bitter law student

“Even as a child, I thought the way Blondie and Dagwood’s chairs were arranged (so that she never has to see whatever disgusting, food-based perversions he finds on late-night cable) was unspeakably depressing. It’s like they used to have separate dens, until a ‘marriage counselor’ with ‘new ideas’ suggested that they spend more time together. This almost, sort-of, counts.” –Sarah

“I’d say Beetle Bailey is about to retcon himself back to college, but without a third panel explicitly saying so I can’t be certain.” –Comrade Denny

“Attracting Mark’s Attention In Ten Easy Steps. Chapter 1. Wrong: I hope he notices I’ve changed my hair. Right: I hope he notices I’ve groomed my pelt.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

I must give a hearty thank you to everyone who’s put cash in tip jar! And our advertisers know how a clean election is run:

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