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I’m sure you are all more than used to the shameless self-promotion on COTW night, but this is even more shameless than usual! And yet I think you will be pleased to hear it. Because today (well, Friday evening, but I missed it because I went away for the weekend) you can at long last purchase the Spider-Man 2 Rifftrax to which I contributed! It is a mere $2.99, features my voice and jokes, along with the voices and jokes of MST3K alums Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy, and is very funny. What more do you need, another look at the fine poster art? Well, that’s done easily enough:

Now go forth and purchase, and enjoy!

(If you were away last week and are greeting this with a big fat “Huh?”, here’s the explanation.)

And speaking of promotion … you may have noticed that Gil Thorp’s huge, polyhedronical head was even larger and more terrifying than usual today:

That’s because the strip is 50 years old today! Now, since I’ve become a semi-famous blogger in the fairly small world of newspaper comics, I’ve started to receive all sorts of emails from publicists that basically boil down to “Sure, your blog is a for-profit enterprise that sells ad space, but don’t you want to help us advertise our products for free?” These almost always get deleted. And yet, when I got a Gil Thorp 50th anniversary email this morning, I did not consign it to the trash folder with the glee that I did the endless bubbling press releases I received about the Blondie 75th anniversary wank-a-thon. Do I not, after all, have a certain vested interest in the bizarre, anachronistic soap opera strips remaining solvent, against all odds?

So, here they are, fresh from Gil Thorp’s publicist to your eyes: a press release on Gil’s 50th, a somewhat hostile interview with Gil by Marty Moon on the milestone, and the really exciting one, information on the new Gil Thorp collection, Tales from the Bucket. There’s no Web site for the latter (note to Gil Thorp guys: for God’s sake, get a Web site, they’re practically free and everything) and it’s not available in stores, so to lay your hands on it, you’ll need to order it from Take Five Productions at take_five@comcast.net.

And now, with that shameless commercialism over, it’s time for the comment of the week.

“WARNING: Do not try the classic ‘got your nose’ trick with Toby. She will take it too seriously. ‘I can’t figure out how this happened! I’m not careless with my nose!'” –Joe Blevins

And the runners-up!

“Toby really needs to get to a mechanic to have herself checked out; she’s leaking robotic fluid from her cold, dead cybernetic eye.” –Joseph J. Finn

“Actually, that’s Susan Smith the childkiller. She’s been brought into the strip to give it a more uplifting tone.” –Comrade Denny

“I’m just glad Berna, as a healthworker of some vague disposition, takes health and safety seriously — if you’re going to go pinging on speed all day at work, be sure to wear a mouthguard.” –lesles

“That’s the scariest face I’ve ever seen Judy Dench make. ‘My thoughts exactly! I ALWAYS KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE THINKING.'” –Hasty Penguin

“I’ve been to college, and now, as an expert on What People Who Do Drugs Can Look Like, I declare Alan disqualified, unless the drug that he’s doing is a prescription for his allergy to modern hairstyles.” –elyse

“I’m glad to see from the double 0s in front of Crankshaft’s bus number that he has been granted a license to kill.” –Renna Warren

“Nothing calms down a mother mountain lion with two cubs to protect faster than the rumble of several tons of granite boulders. Works every time.” –LITTLE A. OF THE GRAND CONCOURSE JUNGLE PATROL

“Haley is sure to make big money on the streets in her sexy, sexy Gap t-shirt.” –MsMolly

“I kind of covet Gloria’s outfit there — the retro tie-front blouse and formfitting sweater vest are very sexy secretary. I do not, however, covet Gloria’s botoxed forehead immobility, taupe lipstick, and blind faith in Sam’s skills as a detective.” –shegotzen

“The expression on Rex Morgan’s face after ‘I’m fond of your patootie’ doesn’t bother me so much as the angle the doctor assumes upon hearing it. He’s presenting like a baboon.” –Idols of Mud

“Rex Morgan, M.D.: MEANWHILE, OFF CAPE VERDE, A BUTTERFLY FLAPS ITS WINGS.” –minor flood

“Toby: ‘Oh noes! There was a charge on our card that got denied. We’ve been issued a new card and there is no extra charge or danger of any kind!’ Chinbeard: ‘Um … how did you get this number?'” –AmazingThor

“So Chinbeard is all jacked up over a speech on linguistics and pedagogy? Considering that he’s married to Toby, I guess his one true passion in life is being bored out of his skull.” –cheech wizard

And hey, big thanks go out to those who put a little cash in my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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Hey everybody, it’s the wee hours of Tuesday morning, so it’s COTW time! But first, as is becoming more and more common, it’s adorable merch picture time. Both of today’s pics come from the future Mrs. Spectacular Spider-Brick, who here is modeling the one of the fine t-shirts bearing the CLAM DOWN logo designed by her beau:

And her kitty loves the logo almost as much in its mousepad form!

Also! There are two comics blogs that I have been meaning to link to for about ever:

• Mary Worth, Style Mavin takes on the extremely important task of analyzing the fashion in our favorite meddling-biddy-themed soap strip. Not only does blogmistress Tina offer her opinions on the clothes worn by Mary, Toby, and the rest, but she actually creates real-life versions, as you can see here and here.
• Comics In My Pants proves rather conclusively that every comic strip can be improved by changing the punchline to some variation on the phrase “in my pants”.

And now, here’s this week’s not-in-my-pants top comment!

“Alan’s deep into drug addiction now. Shirt open at the collar, no undershirt seen, and it looks like his cuffs are unbuttoned. Next thing you know, he’ll stop wearing a belt, and maybe let his pants cuffs down an inch. This raw depravity gives me the vapors.” –Muffaroo M. Muffaroo

And the runners-up! So funny!

“Today’s FBOFW would look good on a Hallmark card that had been set on fire and flung into a sewer.” –Angry Kem

“To get pregnant, [Elizabeth] would have had to had contact with Anthony’s junk, which, henceforth, we shall refer to as ‘Little Anthony and the Imperials.'” –Old School Allie Cat

“I can’t wait for the inevitable three-year story arc when Toby and Chinbeard get to Scotland and she’s run over by an oncoming glacier. ‘That ice! It seems to be getting closer. Should I move?'” –Mr. Coffee Nerves

“Toby often uses her credit card to cut up lines of coke, but usually spends cash on her main purchases. Namely, coke.” –Rusty

“I love the confusion on Toby’s face when the bank asks her ‘Did you move to Canada?’ Clearly she doesn’t know. Perhaps she did. How can one tell? Where is Canada? Toby’s mind is on overdrive.” –Gabacho

“There’s something about that ellipsis and subsequent horrified triple exclamation mark in Margo’s speech bubble that suggests very strongly that if she, personally, happened to get any Lu Ann on her hands she would scrub them with a strong disinfectant.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“When our A3G narrator says the sunshine ‘restores Margo’s spirits,’ what he/she/it means is that, of course, liquor stores are usually only open during daylight hours.” –Nate

“Today’s installment of Luann maintains such a precise balance of ‘huh?’ and ‘eww!’ that it’s almost a thing of beauty, except for being dreadful beyond human expression.” –Violet

“Was Dennis menacing? If he whipped it out on the diving board and started doing an ‘out of control firehose’ on the people below, I have to give him a bit of credit — perhaps even a standing ovation for something finally ‘menacing’ after all these years of milquetoasty bits of annoyance. However, I’m betting that he probably simply stood up on the high board, shaking with fear and a miserable look on his face, with a stream of urine running down his leg as some bigger kids lined up on the ladder behind him kept taunting him to jump.” –Frank Parsnip

“I also like that pluggers buy magazines to look at the pictures, thereby subtly, hilariously subverting one of the oldest jokes about illiteracy. Books can’t be found within fifteen miles of this conversation.” –ChargeMan

“I think the duck looks a little irritated with Slylock. Maybe he suspects the way the thief gets across the water is because the thief is a duck. ‘It’s like he doesn’t even see that I’m here,’ he’s thinking. ‘Howabout the next thief steals chickens from a henhouse — how would he like that?'” –Shmork

“Take the wheel, Jeff, I need to gesticulate.” –Red Greenback

“A3G has such nice, polite, well-groomed dope fiends. I can only assume their drug of choice is Flintstones chewables.” –Joe Blevins

Also worthy of honorable mention (though far too long to reproduce here in its entirety) is faithful reader Gold-Digging Nanny’s meticulous reconstruction of the last few months of Apartment 3-G storylines, with damning analysis of how they have almost universally failed to live up to their potential.

Speaking of honor, those who put cash in my tip jar are particularly honorable! And so too are our advertisers:

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• Blood and Money: Anna has struggled with her supernatural status, but now must deal with her legacy — to claim her rightful inheritance. But her enemies are after what they want most: blood and money. Fourth in the national bestselling book series from Jeanne C. Stein: Legacy!

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You may have noticed for the past few days that I’ve been posting comics very early in the morning, only a few hours after they go live on the Houston Chronicle site. It was almost as if I were somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone, where these comics were available at 10 p.m. It was almost as if I were in San Diego, spending time — oh, I don’t know, maybe making fun of a Spider-Man movie with Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy!

If you’re not familiar with RiffTrax, you’d better get familiar with it, right now! RiffTrax is a project in the spirit of MST3K. It makes a clever end run around the issues of film licensing: you download the hilarious commentary on MP3, and then rent the DVD and watch them together. And on September 5, for a mere $2.99, you’ll be able to listen to one with me!

It will probably not shock you to learn that I’m a huge Mystery Science Theater fan, and that the show really influenced my writing. In terms of living out childhood dreams, probably the only thing that could have topped this would be getting to serve on the U.S.S. Enterprise with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. It was an honor, and it was a blast! Movie Spidey gets into a slightly greater number of tussles with supervillains than newspaper comic strip Spidey, but if anything he whines and mopes even more. I’ll let you all know when the MP3 is up!