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Hey, kids! Been having a good time … mom says hello to everyone, though she did demur on picking a comment of the week. “I’m not worthy!” she says.

Anyhoo, here’s this week’s top comment, picked the old-fashioned way:

“You know, any thoughts of Miss Buxley in her undies were distracted by General Halftrack’s veiled references to incontinence. I bet he’s peeing right now and there’s not a thing we can do about it.” –Citric

And the runners-up! Also funny!

“What’s with the unnecessary honesty on a first date? Can’t wait for tomorrow when she tells him she’s already been imagining their wedding and babies, gambles on dogfights, and once killed a hobo.” –AlmostAGhost

“FW: (to the tune of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’): Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ Your birthmother’s dying of cancer/ and the Post Office wants you to know.” –Professor Fate

“Liz the Vet is slowly worming her way into Garfield’s trust. Tomorrow: poisoned lasagna.” –Inspector Dim

“Darin’s closing his P.O. box because he’s opened a new one — in his girlfriend’s pants!” –NaughtyNatureLover

“I suppose Wilbur is a widower. I mean, Dawn’s mom had to have died of shame, right?” –Trilobite

“I’m guessing the second lady is the hired muscle: ‘You want I should mess them up a little, boss?’ No-one should work at home without a sassy Prohibition-era she-goon.” –Old Bean

“I believe the answer to how Alice manages to suffer through each day with Henry and their WC Fields-nosed offspring lies in her very full wine glass.” –Mack

“Ruff seems to be eating the detritus falling from his own greenish, filthy coat, like a self-sustaining ecosystem of animal neglect and ropy, mop-like hair.” –SecretMargo

“Screw ‘Everybody’s Different.’ Play ‘Tarzana Nights’! C’mon! ‘TARZANA NIGHTS’!!!” –Mollie

“Does Mary Worth’s mission as official Charterstone advice-giver include advising close friends to abandon laughably inept combovers? Apparently not.” –rich

“Since Josh is wondering what was the deal with Albert Pinkham Ryder, I may as well share my pet theory. In the afterlife, the great dead American painters foresaw that if Luann were allowed to continue painting, her awesomely bad artwork would threaten to destroy art in America altogether, like a bomb exploding with the force of a 100 million Kincade cottages. So they sent Ryder to destroy her. He has failed miserably, and now is sweating in terror at the dead painters’ meeting. Seated behind a glass tube and stroking a white cat, Winslow Homer says, ‘I do not welcome failure, Number Six.’ He pushes a button that sends electricity coursing through Ryder’s chair, destroying him instantly. An unseen brass section vamps dramatically. Next — they send Thomas Eakins to succeed where Ryder failed.” –ChristianPinko

“What I love about Derle is that his business is called Fly-by-Night and his prominent tattoo declares him to be a tax evader. Look for Derle in the yellow pages under SMUGGLING-OPIUM.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“What I noticed about today’s strip is that those are enormous bowls of ice cream. I guess all those calories are just the trick to give Kaz all of his pummeling power. Of course, I don’t recall off the top of my head ever having seen anyone in (DT)GT actually in the act of eating. I’d like to believe that they simply unhinge their monstrous alien jaws and swallow their foodstuffs whole.” –Paperback Rifler

“For someone who pledges to take his own life before the tyrannical government can force him to pay his taxes (an illegal act), I’ve got a problem with Derie’s sudden concern for the legal ramifications of his actions. It’s like he took a page from the Autobiography of Hugh Avery: From Aristocrat to Wuss in One Day.” –Hogen Mogen

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I’m hoping to get some actual comics up later tonight, but wanted to set you up with COTW action to tide you over. In the meantime, you might also enjoy this Carter-era team-up between Spider-Man and Planned Parenthood to teach kids about birth control and fight off green-skinned big-headed slave masters/“jive turkeys” (really). My wife works in the education department at Planned Parenthood and so this had them quite amused over there when it hit the Internets the other day. It was also through my wife’s work that I was able to treat you to this delightful document.

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I probably won’t get to new comics until late-ish tonigh, so to tide you over, here are some fab photos from the Land of the Rising Sun! Faithful reader CrabbyGenes, who is a resident of Japan, recently met up with a visitor:

I met SecretMargo in Tokyo today, and we had a great time eating lunch, coffee-shop hopping, buying a book or two, and talking about anything and everything under the sun — including Comics Curmudgeon, of course!

We couldn’t find anything really famous or recognizable in the part of Tokyo we were in to use as a background for the photo. So we just found something that looked Japanese-y. We asked the guy who was handing out the free fans we are holding to take two of the pictures for us. The background and fans are “manga”-ish, but I think they’re just the advertising gimmick for the pachinko parlour we’re posing in front of — the name of which is “Green Peas Pachislo Tower.” You can see it printed in English on the carpet in one of the photos. (Great name!)

SecretMargo is of course sporting his Molly the Bear shirt. Such surrealist shirt slogan/logo combos are of course par for the course in Japanese fashion, so presumably he didn’t raise any eyebrows with it. However, if this photo from the always-amusing Engrish.com is any indication, Japan is already on the ironic comics t-shirt bandwagon:

(Thanks to faithful reader Dan the Wis for the tip!)

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Hey, everybody, it’s time for this week’s comment of the week:

FBOFW: “Daddy, tell us about the pets you had before I was born! That would be so interesting. Hold the book and tell me not to touch the pictures, I love that! Later, take me with you while you do your banking and wait on line at the DMV.” –Hogen Mogen

It was really hard to pick this week’s top comments, as there were many, many funny contenders:

“That Sophie is one lucky girl! The bestest thing you can do for a 10-year-old global-warming nerd who says things like ‘the data speaks for itself!’ is to take her on a tour of a winery. Because when she grows up into a lonely geek with no one to talk to but her Al Gore DVDs, she’ll be glad to know which wines will keep her drunkest at night.” –BigTed

“My money is definitely on Tim not being dead, but somehow something more boring and devoid of dramatic possibility than dead.” –Emily

“This woman is either really bad at praying, or really good at praying and hates her husband-corpse.” –DropDeadGorgias

“I like that Spider-Man just walks around the house is his red unitard. He probably sleeps in it, too. That thing must have the B.O. of a thousand troubled nights.” –Tats

“I’m wondering when Dee’s going to start thinking hard about pulling a Kelpforth on the entire Maison de Patterson and taking it down to its smoldering, glowing embers. ‘Do you think your mom would mind if we removed all trace of her existence here for 30 years by immolation?'” –bats :[

“The more I read Pluggers, the more I suspect the title comes from attempting to ‘plug’ the hole inside them. Pluggers gorge themselves on suet and sugar because they feel empty inside. Pluggers love their trucks and their remote controls, because they feel betrayed by everything else. Pluggers lack the ability to really feel, so they yearn to feel anything, even pain.” –Edward

“Hilary is lying on her stomach, which means only one thing: Sally Forth never invested in an oral thermometer. No wonder Hilary looks queasy.”–McManx

“And what’s with [Drew’s] non-phone-holding hand? I mean, I know that the intention is for him to be cradling his slick-haired head and shielding it from the rock-hard pillow, but it looks more as if he’s cupping it over his ear (perhaps to drown out the deafening sound of his own ennui).” –Spiny Norman

“Nothing says ‘prepare for the sexing’ like Dr. Drew’s mom jeans.” –Andsheewas

“Funky Winkerbean: Yeah, the cancer thing is kind of a downer, but I think it’s important for kids to realize that life isn’t a bowl of cherries, but rather a series of disappointments that you’ve gotta overcome with the help of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Jesus Christ.” –Jamus the Bartender (channeling Dick Tracy’s crimestopper notebook)

“Now that the one-legged man has arrived, surely it won’t be long before the ass-kicking contest commences.” –KarenD

“The real joke in Crankshaft is that he knows his joke will be misunderstood. He’s intentionally telling a non-joke because he knows everyone has to pretend it’s funny — either because they want to respect their elders, or because they know he’s this close. The third panel would be him going, ‘Get it? Eh? Eh?’ as he jabs his elbow into a stranger’s ribs, hard.” –Plus a constant

“The flip side is the Family Circus, where your monstrous hydrocephalic children ambush you with little ‘Am I cute yet?’ moments. The only thing that makes FC tolerable is imagining that each day’s strip is followed by the parents screaming in horror, tying their children in a bag and throwing them in the river. But every night they wake to the slap slap slap of little wet feet as the kids file back in through the door, blank-eyed and expressionless.” –Old Bean

“It’s funny to me that most of you seem to be handling this Mary Worth story line so well, because I just find it unfathomably disgusting. Every day it runs another little piece of me dies. And really, what’s the appeal of it to Mary Worth’s target audience? Are they hoping that people who have been married 50 years and are going senile won’t remember what actual flirting is like?” –Christopher

“I think the writer of Mary Worth probably hasn’t been on a date in decades and, in an attempt to make the banter relevant to the kids these days, trawled a few internet dating sites to see how people described their interests, then copied it verbatim. If the dialogue continued, it would be some paraphrase of ‘I like to go out and have a good time, but I also like to curl up and watch a movie,’ thus covering the entire spectrum of social activity bookended between serial rapist and coma patient.” –PD

“Darin, having just gotten laid, sports the same expression he would have if he were diagnosed with testicular cancer. Actually, substitute ‘will’ for ‘would’ and ‘when’ for ‘if.'” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Pluggers know nobody is ever going to see them naked again for the rest of their lives.” –Donald The Anarchist

“This meal in MW seems to be some kind of contest to use the most inappropriate flatware. Today Drew one-ups Dawn’s oyster fork by eating his creamed corn with a butter knife. Or maybe he’s actually about to eat a big hunk o’ butter with part of an Erector set. I’m not sure which.” –treedweller

And of course we must give love to our advertisers:

• Shop indie, pass it on!: Shana Logic loves Joshreads fans because they are independent, rockin’, super nice art lovers! That’s why they know you’re love Shana Logic’s hip & hot jewelry, killer ties for men, home decor & iPod gear, unusual plushes, and more!
• Political humor tees & gear: Bush, Hillary, Obama, and more! Get $5 off now!
• Learn to draw the human figure: Acclaimed anatomy training course! Used by leading entertainment studios worldwide in 60 countries — the likes of LucasFilm, ILM, RedStorm, Midway, Blizzard. Learn to draw the human figure from your mind for illustration, comic books, manga, anime, game design, and all art fields.

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