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It’s another comment of the week, and an early one at that! I know I usually keep my ad plugs for the end, but there’s one I wanted to draw your attention to up top: your eyes do not deceive you, there is a Slylock Fox Spot The Differences Game for the iPhone and iPad! YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT!

Ahem. And now, your comment of the week:

“That’s definitely not Dudley Do-Right we see in Mark Trail. It’s his religious cousin, Dudley Deuteronomy.” –Mibbitmaker

And your runners up! Very funny!

“I’m hoping Batuik is setting us up for a Funkiverse Time Shift Revelation: ‘So if your father was Smokey Williams, you must know all about the Crankshaft Massacres! The fireball that engulfed his family … The Garden Club decapitations … And the final horrific school bus crash into the Icy Cuyahoga River … Your father could have stopped it all, but he just made it worse! Why? Why? WHY?'” –Lorne

“It looks like I’m engaged to a jock! Which explains why, as a nerd, I just got my glasses broken. What, you didn’t think I could find a way to whine about even the most positive moments of my life? LES MOORE, MOTHERFUCKERS. RESPECT.” –Windier E. Megatons

“It’s too bad Les never met Lu Ann. He could wax pseudo-philosophical on his front porch swing to his heart’s content, and she’d just be content to sit at his side thinking ‘Wow, a porch swing, how very quaint in a bland, suburban way!’ They would be completely absorbed in their own tiny little worlds, and thus completely happy together.” –TheDiva

“‘Oh, please, Jughaid — not another apple!!’ ‘Nope!! I brung you an apple, Miz Prunelly!!’ ‘O … kay.'” –Chyron HR

“So McQueen is operating on the assumption that people are going to drive to wherever-in-the-hell valley to look at transient waterfowl that may or may not have biblical bands around their legs after reading an as-yet-to-be-written article in a wildlife magazine? I think the mercury-based hair dye he uses may be seeping in through the skin (note: Don’t forget the eyebrows next time!).” –geekwhisperer

“I could stay here forever, Paul. And in fact, I’ll have to, because at the rate I’m apparently aging between panels one and three I’ll be dead in a matter of seconds! Just bury me where I fall.” –Windier E. Megatons

“Even more bizarre than the ideas that tourism is bad for the valley or that tourists will be attracted to Bible-geese is the idea that people actually read and are inspired by the articles Mark or Kelly churn out in their poorly-managed dead-tree publication filled with content by people who can’t string together a natural sounding sentence in conversation, much less on paper.” –Alex Blaze

“Well, Princess, it seems my bizarrely complex and ill-conceived plan to spread the Good Word through golden Bible verses attached to a tiny population of migratory water-fowl has drawn the attention of two viciously self-centered nature writers whose readership of insane shut-ins must surely number in the low dozens. Deliver these micro-engraved platinum acorns to our most powerful ally that she may know our darkest fears have come to pass. Hurry! To the Queen of the Ants!” –firedmyass

“With all my heart, I hope this will finally be the adventure where it’s revealed that a steady stream of men with interesting facial hair are concocting fake conspiracies in an effort to help their friend Mark avoid the women in his life.” –Jocelyn Knockersbury

“Hey Sergeant MacQueen, can your message be delivered in the form of randomly-placed dog urine? If so, you’ve made the right choice.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“‘Now that you mention it, what AM I doing here? I could be home, watching TV!’ It’s sort of ironic that Peter works for a newspaper, actually.” –Carly

Thanks to all who put some cash into my tip jar! And we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• The Dragon Who Loved Me: G.A. Aiken’s fifth book in The New York Times bestselling Dragon Kin series! A wicked and witty tale of one fearless, outspoken heroine teamed up with an incorrigible barbarian. “Sexy and outrageous humor.”–Romantic Times

To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

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Gil Thorp, 8/29/11

Call it foolish optimism if you must, but despite years of decidedly non-wacky Gil Thorp plots, my heart races a bit as each new season dawns, as I anticipate some glorious insanity to come. If I’m interpreting the first two panels correctly, I may be in luck: it appears that a pair of space aliens have arrived in Milford, determined to infiltrate the hu-man society via the high school athletics activity that seems so important to the Earth dwellers. These beings have chosen the name “Abro,” which is almost but not quite like one that humans would use. “Off to the junior high school?” asks the mother-unit, her use of definite articles just a smidge off. “Come back before the cows come home!” she adds, her use of folksy sayings significantly wider from the mark. “What cows?” asks her “son” “Brody,” who’s too busy fishing his football from the Plaything Materializer to grapple with the niceties of the locals’ English.

Meanwhile (or as the narration box would have it, “while”) at Gil’s, some poor kid who’s come looking for advice and mentorship has worn out his welcome. “Of course you have to go, Mark. Stop apologizing! Seriously, just get the fuck out.”

Slylock Fox, 8/29/11

And the best candidate for the long undersea mission is … the panda? Because he doesn’t mind loneliness? How about, oh, I don’t know, the damn fish? The Ocean Research Institute could save an awful lot of money on supplies if it hired a researcher who doesn’t require a separate oxygen tank. “Please, pick me!” the fish begs with its eyes. “Or at least throw me back in the water! For the love of God, I’m suffocating out here!”

Crankshaft, 8/29/11

As predicted, “Special Collectors Edition Crankshaft: Cayla’s Origin Revealed!” has in fact revealed the origin of Cayla’s baffling attraction to Les: She accidentally killed someone during a softball game, and, wracked by guilt as a result, came to believe that she doesn’t deserve any kind of happiness in life.

Narration box from Judge Parker, 8/29/11

This is pretty much the most believable narration box in a soap opera strip that I’ve seen. I too would be surprised to hear that someone likes the idea of buying a motor home!

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Panel from Slylock Fox, 8/28/11

There are a number of things that I find dubious and hilarious about today’s Slylock Fox mystery, chief among them being Slylock’s withering and unwarranted contempt for Count Weirdly’s mad science skills. “Even if Weirdly did have a working time machine”? You mean, like the working time machine you yourself used to journey back to the Cretaceous Era? Oh, sure, when you get a jones to go look at some dinosaurs, you’re all like, “Hey, Count, we’re buds, right,” but when other people are around it’s more like “Whatever, you’re guilty and probably your time machine doesn’t even work, pssht.” What a user!

Plus, with Weirdly in command of a device that can interfere with the very timeline, Slylock’s smug array of historical facts are completely meaningless. Sure, Thomas Edison didn’t make the world’s first phone call … in our universe. But what would keep the crazed Count from traveling to the 1870s and feeding young Thomas Edison information about telephony, to ensure that this important invention would be born here in USA America and not cooked up by some beardy Scot lurking on Canadian soil?

More to the point, seeing as Weirdly is at the controls of a time machine, he automatically has a perfect alibi for everything. He could have easily burned Farmer Bear’s crops 10 minutes ago, spent a leisurely year or so in the 1700s hanging out with Voltaire, then returned to the present instant. Basically, he now has unstoppable powers and Slylock’s ratiocinating will be wholly incapable of stopping him, so we should all adjust ourselves to life on Planet Weirdly pretty quickly if we know what’s good for us.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 8/28/11

Seeing that Hootin’ Holler is completely cut off from the mainstream of American cultural and economic life, I’m saddened to discover that it’s somehow still been thoroughly infiltrated by the fad diet industry. Still, I kind of like the way Loweezy invites poor Lureen inside to break the news to her in private that there’s no quick route to weight loss. She even takes care to close the door behind her, something that probably takes a bit of effort, as the first panel in the second row clearly indicates that it’s not attached to the house via any sort of fancy flatlander hinges.

Judge Parker, 8/28/11

Ha ha, sure, Sam and Abbey will just head out on a journey in their luxurious Sex Winnebago, leaving the groundskeeper or whoever in charge of their 14-year-old daughter, who’s announced her plan to win some pasty-face boy’s love by any means necessary. What could possibly go wrong?