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With access to my Web host’s logs, I can tell a lot about my readers. Sometimes, I can tell more than I really want to. For instance, if someone finds this Weblog via a search engine, I can tell what words they plugged into the search engine. Usually, they’re just looking up “josh reads the comics,” but sometimes their search terms are more … disturbing. I’m not sure what’s more alarming: the fact that someone searched on Yahoo for “miss buxley in a bikini,” or the fact that this Weblog was the number 11 result for that query. Anyway, in an attempt to embarrass and alienate my readership, I promise to post the most bizarre search queries to the blog.

Incidentally, I’d like to give a linkback to Tube City Almanac. I’m not saying that the author of this blog found my page by searching for pictures of Miss Buxley in a bikini, but I’m not saying that he didn’t, either.

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Being away for two weeks only served to show me how little actually happens in two weeks in the soap opera strips. Still, a couple of loyal readers offered amusing summaries of their twists and turns. Brandon, who also goes by the name of “Tournament of stuff,” provides this recap of Rex Morgan, M.D.:

“After surviving a harrowing adventure far more harrowing than anything in Without A Paddle, Rex and June are ready for two things: a shower and some sleep! Something’s troubling June, though, and it’s not just that Rex smells ‘like a goat.’ Alternately too tired to discuss her concerns and too worried by them to go to sleep, June finally reveals that they’ve been neglecting their parental duties. It’s time, they decide in the morning, to fire their nanny. After saying their cheery goodbyes and their thanks to the crew that nearly killed them, Rex and June head home to face the unhappy task that awaits them.”

Brandon also describes himself as “a fan”, as if that sort of ass-kissing is going to get him mentioned in the blog. Oh, wait, it will. Ass-kiss away, people!

Grand prize, though, goes to an anonymous poster who offered a summary of two weeks of Mary Worth — in advance!

“Heck, I can summarize the next two weeks of Mary Worth without needing the strips to be published. Or without even using a verb! (Since nothing ever happens in Mary Worth, verbs are unnecessary.) Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. Wilbur’s broken heart.”

Good try, my nameless friend, though even the most faithful Mary Worth fan couldn’t have predicted that the litany should have really looked something like this: “Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. My very own meth lab!“

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Not that I’m married to factual accuracy or anything, but I just thought I’d correct one misstatement in my Prince Valiant entry of a few days ago: the current author of that strip and managing editor of the Atlantic is named Cullen Murphy, not John Cullen Murphy. John was Cullen’s father, who also worked on Prince Valiant, and he just recently passed away. You can read more about them both here. Thanks to Robin for setting me straight.

Thanks to everyone who’s been reading this little blog over the past few weeks. In what has been a fairly major shock to me, I seem to have attracted a core group of several dozen readers. So now I’m going to probably throw all that away by going on vacation for two weeks. I’ll be in France, and thus away from my computer and the comics section, until Friday, August 27. In theory, I could go to an Internet cafe and post about the comics in the International Herald Tribune every day, but I’m, like, not going to.

For everyone bereft by this news, I have a homework assignment. Those of you who are interested should keep track of one of the soap opera comics discussed here so far (Apartment 3-G, Mary Worth, The Phantom, Rex Morgan, M.D., or Mark Trail) over the next two weeks and send me a summary of plot developments on the 26th. Whoever can sum up two weeks of action most succinctly and amusingly gets their version published here. I’ll bet you can do Mary Worth in a sentence.

Au revoir, y’all!