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Item the first: Faithful reader Pogoer points me to this story which reveals what most of us probably had guessed: They’ll Do It Every Time will be closing up shop forever after the last of the Al Scaduto-penned panels runs on February 2. I have weirdly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I always rail against zombie strips, and while I’m still sad over Al’s passing, the 100 or so newspapers that ran TDIET now represent 100 slots for aspiring new cartoonists to try to break into the industry. (Let’s hope the papers do give some unknowns an opportunity to find an audience, instead of “getting that Family Circus cartoon we’ve heard so much about.”) But, since Scaduto was the third artist TDIET had in its tenure, part of me wonders what it might have been like to give the feature to someone young who had a very different style and see what they might have done with it. I do hope that this blog has in some small part given the feature a bit of a send-off and resurgence in interest in what turned out to be its last few years.

Item the second: Many, many faithful readers have pointed me in the direction of Lasagna Cat. What, you might ask, is Lasagna Cat? I could tell you that it’s a series of short videos in which Garfield strips are acted out live (and which feature an actual person in a Garfield suit), each followed by a somewhat longer video that matches a light-rock favorite with images from the strip, but that doesn’t even begin to capture how awesome and bizarre the videos are. By all means, check it out for yourself before Paws, Inc.’s wrath is unleashed!

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OK, boys and girls, your blogger had a lot of real work to do today and wasn’t even able to read the comics, much less blog about them. Expect Tuesday and Wednesday comics tomorrow morning. But! To tide you over, I have a big exciting announcement! Well, exciting if you live in Tucson, anyway.

Do you live in or near Tucson? At the beginning of March, I’ll be taking one of my many vacations (start whining about it now) in the greater Sonoran desert region, and I’d like to plan to meet up with y’all! And there will be a special guest: MR. BOB WEBER, JR.! March 7! Early evening! The Kon-Tiki at the corner of E. Broadway and N. Swan! MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!!

Everyone who doesn’t live near Tucson: Um, comics tomorrow, I guess. G’Night!

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Do you hate Mondays like Garfield hates Mondays, or like you hate Garfield? There’s no need for hatin’ now that Monday COTW day!

“Say what you will about Blaze, but it’s January 9th, so he must throw one hell of a New Years Eve party.” –man behind the curtain

And with each COTW, you get an array of several runners up!

“I was originally under the impression that ‘plugger’ was a sort of term of endearment and the point of the strip was for aging working-class folk to commune about their common ailments and idiosyncrasies, but I think the author has become jaded and now loathes these ‘pluggers’ — perhaps his income from his syndicated strip has allowed him to move up the socio-economic ladder to the point where he has forgotten his roots. Or maybe the pressure to meet the constant deadlines of a comic that runs daily has crushed his soul to the point where he must lash out at those who he now sees as the source of his constant torment. In any case, I expect we’ll start seeing future installments where the pluggers start to have targets and gun sight markers drawn over them as they are subject to increasingly bizarre Dante-esque horrors.” –Bobdog

“But besides that, it appears the main reason Mr. Lodge is so mad is because Archie is interrupting his get-high-and-play-bad-versions-of-Pink-Floyd-on-the-flat-guitar-while-wearing-a-gorilla-hair-sweater time.” –The Uncola

“Mr. Lodge’s sweater looks more like AstroTurf than anything else, but since he’s supposed to be rich I guess it would be something rarer — like the AstroTurf featured on the hit television series The Brady Bunch.” –Kelsey

“I’m starting to get a mental image of the women who patronize Ruby’s chain of hair salons, unable to hold their heads upright under the weight of all the bows.” –Darkefang

“Pibgorn: Why do I keep going to take a look when someone mentions this strip? It’s incomprehensible and I haven’t seen fairy boobies yet.” –UncleJeff

“I think Andrew’s ex has actually been brutally dismembered, then reassembled with an elaborate ball joint system so her friend (read: jealous murderer) can pose her like some ‘My First BFF’ doll. This not only explains the incredibly awkward sitting position, but also why her hand can only grip items like an action figure grips an accessory.” –Craig

“Uhm, I feel there should be a discussion of the bows in Ruby’s hair. Although I think all that really needs to be said is ‘ew.'” –ArbuckleLovesLyman

“I’m more and more concerned with the fact that every A3G comic strip features two people revolving around each other like they’re trapped in some sort of crazy video game boss fight level. I always picture them going into some sort of modern dance routine while making their comments, sliding limbs over furniture and playing around with the negative space. ‘No amount of the flooring will ever be trod on for too long!'” –Hasty Penguin

“New Year’s Eve occurs a little late in Apartment 3-G because the cartoonist needs to be certain that the idea of New Year’s Eve is fresh in the minds of the readers. If it actually fell on December 31, it would have been a whole year since the readers had last encountered the concept. Now it’s only a couple weeks ago, and some of them will remember it.” –Mr. Nice Guy

“Say what you will about Sunday’s [Hi and Lois], but realize this: the exact same plot would have served as the basis of at least two months of Mary Worth.” –Hank

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