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Hi everybody! This is my monthly post introducing new readers with all the stuff that this site has to offer. If you’re totally familiar with all the doodads and hoohahs along the left side of your screen, you can just skip all this; but if you’re not, you might want to read on. Even if you’re a regular, some of this stuff may surprise you! This month, there’s some updates to information about merchandise and advertising, and a special surprise photo.

Here’s some of the features of this site that go beyond the front page!

Archives. This site has been publishing for more than two years now, and every single post is still available for your amusement. Check out the archives menu just below all the advertising (or click here to jump there). You can see all the posts that deal with a particular comic; see all the posts from a particular month; or search on a keyword or phrase. If you’re feeling reckless, you can also click on the Randomly Selected Post O’ Mystery and enjoy an arbitrary entry from the past; this post will change every time you reload the page.

Discussion. Everybody knows that you can put witty comments on each post. But did you know that there’s a full-fledged Comics Curmudgeon discussion board where you can chat with your fellow comics fans? It’s true! You can read the forums without registering, but to participate, you need to sign up for a forums account. Before you sign up to participate there, though, you should read the posting and discussion policies (which apply to comments on the main blog too, for that matter).

Subscribing. Tired of hitting “Refresh” on your browser over and over? Would you like to be alerted every time this blog is updated? You can, thanks to the magic of RSS Webfeeds. Check out the “Subscribe” heading in the left-hand navigational column. Click the “RSS” icon to get the URL to my feed for the newsreader of your choice. Alternately, you can click on any on any of the icons below it to add my site to a variety of popular feed-reading services. You can get updates on your My Yahoo!, My MSN, or Google homepage; add me to your Bloglines or Newsgator page; or even to your Livejournal friends list or your del.icio.us page, with just one click!

If the idea of getting Comics Curmudgeon updates automatically appeals to you but you have no idea what the hell anything in that last paragraph means, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll try to help you out.

Josh’s other comics projects. I do a bit of Comics Curmudgeoning on other sites as well. I write a weekly column called Cartoon Violence on Wonkette, a snarky political blog; it’s pretty much the same schtick as I do here, only with political cartoons, and lots more swearing, and it’s updated every Friday. I also write a short blurb called the Geek Comic of the Week for ITworld.com, a site that focuses on computers and IT; it focuses on Web comics and other cartoons outside of your daily paper with a geeky twist to them, and it’s updated every Sunday night.

Merchandising. Those smiling faces at the bottom of the ad bar aren’t just for show. They’re modeling delightful Comics Curmudgeon gear, which is available for purchase on CafePress! Yes, you can wear and/or drink out of merchandise reminding you of classic Comics Curmudgeon moments, such as “More zippers, mule!”, “In the absence of weights, I am employing isometrics”, Mark Trail’s licorice advice, “Roadside”, Fence Post Frank, inappropriate Chinese food eating banter, and Finger Quotin’ Margo madness. And if you’ve bought some merch and you’d like to join those smiling faces, just take a pic of yourself and send it to me like Naladahc here did:

Advertising. Comics Curmudgeon readers are collectively the best people in the entire world, it goes without saying. Therefore, you’d be wise to market your product or service to them. And you can, by advertising on this site. Thanks to BlogAds, you can do so pretty easily. Just click here to get started. I think you’ll find the rates quite reasonable!

Tipping. “Gosh,” you may very well be saying, “Josh does all this for me; what I can do to make his life a little easier?” Well, you can always put a bit of scratch in my virtual tip jar through the magic of PayPal. Rest assured that every dollar I get allows me to spend less time on my boring real job and more time putting hilarious stuff on my site. Click here to start!

Anyway, thanks to all of you for your support, readership, and hilarious commentary. I’m way too narcissistic to keep doing this without knowing that you’re all out there reading this, so keep it up!

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We’re going on a long weekend trip to celebrate my birthday (that is, the anniversary of my actual birth, not of the birth of this blog), though we are not travelling to sunny Mexico, as this awesome graphic from faithful reader Joan might imply. New posts back on Tuesday, I promise.

To entertain yourself in my absence, check out this increasingly alarming series of graphics featuring my head from faithful reader jonnya:

• Josh’s head
• Josh’s head (larger)
• Josh’s heads
• Josh’s head (with crazy eyes)

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I would have completely forgotten if faithful reader Zorba the Geek hadn’t pointed it out, but today is in fact my second anniversary in the comics blogging biz. Yes, on July 11, 2004, I made my first blog post, about Non Sequitur of all things, though I didn’t unleash it on the world (by which I mean, I didn’t e-mail the URL to the handful of friends that I assumed would constitute my entire audience) until the end of that week. If you’d like to see this blog in embryonic form, check out these posts from that first week.

Over the last two years, my readership has grown way, way beyond that initial group of people, and one of the things that has encouraged me to keep going is the knowledge that you’re all out there, reading, laughing, and often topping me in the comments section and in the forum. You’re also incredibly nice and generous to me, and, apparently, often forward this URL to your friends. One of the nice things that happened to me today was a note from faithful reader Mooncity, creator the comic Autumn Lake, who was nice enough to work me into his comic today. Thanks Mooncity! Read and rejoice!

A couple of other readers saw my new sidebar picture from yesterday against a “green screen” (it’s just the wall of my office! our house is very colorful!) and puckishly put me into various odd situations. DCBirdblaster sent me to the United Airlines VIP lounge in Inchon Airport, S. Korea:

And Devil in the Drain helped me live out my longstanding fantasy vis-a-vis the Apartment 3-G girls:

(By the way, those are the original girls, from the ’60s, back when the strip had actual sex appeal. If you haven’t seen this this Website, from which the above graphic is derived, you are in for a shock.)

In other sidebar photo news, you may have already noticed the dynamic, prize-winning married duo of Lucy Van Pelt and Dr. Jeff Cory, showing off their spiffy new Comics Curmudgeon gear:

Join them today! Send those pics!

Finally, I leave you with two more blog finds. On the single-comic-blog front, there’s Joe Mathlete explains today’s Marmaduke in 500 words or less, which is pretty much what it says on the label, really, and is also frickin’ hilarious. And Livejournaler mia_d has this post, which is in and of itself a hilarous but perfectly natural reaction to the existence of They’ll Do It Every Time, but what really caught my eye was this comment from lostbirdfound, which revealed the following:

Jimmy Hatlo [the original TDIET artist] also did a strip called “Hatlo’s Inferno” which is basically “They’ll Do It Every Time”… in Hell. Needless to say, it rules.

Holy crap. Click here and here for more. I order you to find more of this for me.

Update: A Halto’s Inferno slideshow and an eBay auction of a classic Halto’s Inferno book (scroll down for a good “naughty damned nurse” cartoon). Thanks to bigoldgeek and DarkHorse02GT for the respective head’s ups. I think this strip achieves Outbursts of Everett True levels of horror and wonder.