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You’ve probably noticed the pictures of various cool, attractive people sporting Comics Curmudgeon gear in the sidebar just under the Amazon ad and thought to yourself, “I’d like to be one of those people, but I’m just not cool and/or attractive enough!” Well, here’s a shot in the arm for your self-esteem: you can be one of those people! All you have to do is (1) buy some Comics Curmudgeon gear, (2) take a picture of yourself wearing and/or drinking out of it, and (3) e-mail said picture to me. People have already taken step 1 in record numbers; those shirts and mugs should be arriving around now, so I order you to take steps 2 and 3 today!

As always, I lead by example. Check out my awesome new Margo Warhol t-shirt (art courtesy of David Willis):

“Hey, Josh,” you’re probably saying, “That’s pretty mercenary. Isn’t there some way for my picture to appear on this blog without me having to spend any money?” Of course there is. You could, say, pretend to be a cartoon character from a soap opera strip. Yes, the Finger Quotin’ Margo Lookalike Contest is over, but I want to emphasize that I am more than willing to give a platform to whatever wacko wants to pretend to be Margo Magee or the like. Why, here’s a picture recently sent to me by faithful reader MonkeyPants:

Now, you might be saying, “Hey, she’s not wearing a turtleneck!” But she used to work for King Features and actually edited Apartment 3-G for four years, so I think she knows a little bit more about what Margo would wear than you do.

I conclude this metapost by pointing out two more comics blogs that get more obsessive than even I could contemplate and focus their rage on a single strip: Permanent Monday, which is all about Garfield, and Dinette Set Deconstruction, which is about, well, the Dinette Set. Joy and Burl’s heads float quite creepily above the text in the latter.

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You know how it goes. You’re reading the comments on a blog that doesn’t have a thing to do about politics, when another commentor says something politcal that doesn’t match up with your worldview and OOO it makes me SO MAD and if nobody responds to him everyone will think he’s RIGHT and HE’LL WIN and so it’s PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO RESTRAIN MYSELF FROM WRITING A SCATHING TWELVE-PARAGRAPH REBUTTAL!

Well! Now, instead of putting that twelve-paragraph rebuttal in the comments section on the blog’s main page, you can say, “Prithee, sir! You have wounded the honor of my faction! I challenge you to a duel of wits in … the Cockpit!” And then everyone who’s interested can go over there and yell “Fight! Fight! Fight!” And everyone else can ignore it.

Yes, the Cockpit is a new section of the Comics Curmudgeon Community forums site. You need to register to post there if you don’t already have a forums account, but it’s free to do so. I’m not saying that anything political should be posted there, but if you find yourself getting into a heated back and forth with another poster — about politics or anything else, for that matter — then you should go over there to do it. Because if you don’t, you’ll find that the text of the posts that make up the argument on the main site will be magically replaced with a link to a thread over at the Cockpit, where said text will magically reappear. (And by “magically,” I mean “I’m going to do it.”) Feel free to bash your heads open to your heart’s content, all!

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Well, the suspense is over and I’ve picked the winner. I have to say that it was incredibly hard and part of the reason that I’ve taken so long to pick the winner is that they were all so good. In a very real sense, you’re all winners! But in an even realer sense, only one of you is the winner, and that one of you is “Lucy Van Pelt,” whose entry just seemed to exude a certain je ne sais Margo to me. For mug purposes, I’ve filled in her word balloon:

And yes, this mug is now available at my store at CafePress! Click here to order yours! Lucy herself will of course be getting a free mug in the mail.

In addition, as promised, Dave Willis‘s super-awesome Margo Warhol graphic is going on a t-shirt:

The colors of this graphic seem to work perfectly with CafePress’s new black t-shirt. They’ve just introduced black tees at CafePress and say they can’t guarantee delivery times. Hopefully it won’t take too long, as I’m definitely ordering one of these for myself!

Again, judging this contest was really, really hard for me, and of course my final decision was to a certain extent arbitrary. Perhaps you’d like to see one of the other contestants on a mug or garment of your choice! If so, just e-mail me and I’ll send you a high-quality image of any of the other photos and drawings submitted. (Here’s the lot of them, for reference.) You can then upload them to CafePress yourself and make your own counter-winner. You’ll stick it to the man! (Meaning me.)

Since I was updating my store anyway, I took the opportunity to do a little housecleaning. I’ve added a couple of new shirt styles. The first is for anyone who loves double entendres and public domain clip art.

Work it, people, work it! (If this baffles you, click here and scroll down for the context for this quote.) This shirt is available for the gents and the ladies.

And, finally, if you want to cement your status as an above-it-all hipster with a t-shirt bearing an incomprehensible slogan, check this out:

Wear this shirt to remind you where to find more information about licorice. (Again, you can click here to learn more about learning more about licorice, but it doesn’t make a ton more sense in context.) This t-shirt is great fun for a boy or a girl.

There are still classic Comics Curmudgeon garments at the store, of course: Brick House exercise gear, a Fence Post Frank hat, Canadian Jive-Talkin’ intimate wear, and, of course, “More Zippers, Mule!” Check it out!