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You may have noticed for the past few days that I’ve been posting comics very early in the morning, only a few hours after they go live on the Houston Chronicle site. It was almost as if I were somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone, where these comics were available at 10 p.m. It was almost as if I were in San Diego, spending time — oh, I don’t know, maybe making fun of a Spider-Man movie with Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy!

If you’re not familiar with RiffTrax, you’d better get familiar with it, right now! RiffTrax is a project in the spirit of MST3K. It makes a clever end run around the issues of film licensing: you download the hilarious commentary on MP3, and then rent the DVD and watch them together. And on September 5, for a mere $2.99, you’ll be able to listen to one with me!

It will probably not shock you to learn that I’m a huge Mystery Science Theater fan, and that the show really influenced my writing. In terms of living out childhood dreams, probably the only thing that could have topped this would be getting to serve on the U.S.S. Enterprise with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. It was an honor, and it was a blast! Movie Spidey gets into a slightly greater number of tussles with supervillains than newspaper comic strip Spidey, but if anything he whines and mopes even more. I’ll let you all know when the MP3 is up!

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Spider-Man, 8/9/08

I’ve been mostly ignoring the current Spider-Man plot, which has offered a change of pace from Peter Parker whining about what’s on TV by showing us Peter Parker whining about having the flu. Today’s entry is worth featuring, though, because it includes a rare bout of actual superheroics on Spidey’s part. Naturally, his attempt to save the day has only resulted in him and two others plummeting to their deaths.

Marmaduke, 8/9/08

The Internet-savvy Marmaduke has used a social-networking Web site to arrange an orgy.

Wizard of Id, 8/10/08

“The Wizard of Id isn’t too hip on current events!”

“Why do you say that?”

“The strip writers thought that a two-year-old film based on a five-year-old book constituted ‘current events!'”

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Gil Thorp, 7/17/08

While it’s true that the U.S. military was under intense pressure to come up with an “outside the box” solution that would bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to successful conclusions, “colossally misguided” was one of the kinder things future strategists and historians would have to say about the decision to deploy the Milford Mudlarks against the Taliban.

Apartment 3-G, 7/17/08

Desperate to stay relevant and solvent in a rapidly changing society, the League Of Wandering Eastern Holy Men signed a three-year contract with Hallmark to deliver all of their gnomic advice and warnings in greeting card form.

Judge Parker, 7/17/08

Sam surveyed the scene and had to be pleased: the dunce-capped lawyers from Dewey and Cheatem stood with their heads slumped, reciting their bourgeois, parasitic crimes against the proletariat in a soul-broken monotone, so that $50,000 advance couldn’t be far off; plus, the peasants who were occupying the newly nationalized golf course were well on their way towards meeting their five-year-plan goals for steel production.

Spider-Man, 7/17/08

I was going to make a “surrender Dorothy” joke here, but then I realized that Dorothy Gale showed courage, loyalty, and initiative, and in no way deserves to be compared to Spider-Man — except in the sense that she defeated her nemesis by accident, which is probably the best that Peter Parker can hope for.