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Your comment of the week in a moment, but first: a couple Fun Pictures Of Me With Cool People! The first cool picture is me with Jeff Knurek, aka Jumble Jeff, aka the cartoonist for the Jumble, who has repeatedly put me in prison over the years. Jeff came into town, and he and his lovely wife Kathy took me and my lovely wife Amber out to dinner, and then the next day Jeff, Kathy, and I (Amber had to work, so sad) got to sit in on a reading of a Simpsons episode by the cast! We (and by “we” I mean “Jeff but then he invited me along”) had been invited by Tom Gammil, a Simpsons producer who also draws The Doozies and is a faithful reader of this blog. It was an amazing experience and thanks to Jeff and Tom for making it happen! Here’s me and Jeff out on the Fox lot:

A few days earlier, I had been at a friend’s post-apocalypse-themed birthday party and chatting with a nice young lady named Marize and I had the opportunity (it was natural, I swear I don’t go around bragging about this with no context) to mention that I wrote a blog about comic strips, and she said, “Oh, which one,” and I said “It’s called the Comics Curmudgeon,” and she said “Oh, yeah, I read that,” super casual-like, which impressed me, and then she mentioned that she was a huge fan of the Phantom, and also pointed out that she had just gotten the Phantom’s logo tattooed on her thigh!

Anyway, I’ve been falling down on the job when it comes to Phantom coverage lately, and so I pledge to Marize and to you that I will do better! (SPOILER ALERT: He has amnesia.)

And now … your comment of the week!

“Mark Trail knows he is on the side of righteousness because before each outing he consults with his Lord and master, Jesus Moose, here seen walking on water before the stunned ranks of the non-believers. Blessed be the Father, and the Moose, and the Spirit of the Wild.” –G’Quan

And the very funny runners up!

“Wow, Fox is really cheaping out on the next X-Men movie.” –Ed Dravekcy on Facebook

“I like that one of the differences between the two panels is that in the first, the human appears to be a legit wildlife officer, while in the second, his lack of badge seems to indicate that he’s just some dude who likes stetsons and picking fights with bears.” –pugfuggly

“Little kids worshiping candy and presents rather than the Lord? The math checks out.” –pastordan

“What sort of ghastly vertigo-inducing Hell-Prius is that in panel one? From the Gungan hydrostatic windshield through which Mary projects her head, to the deadly passenger seat that lurches forward and to the centerline, it’s got to be a nightmare ride for Hanna and as such, she frowns her disapproval, which she can check out first-hand in the rear-view mirror, now mere inches from her eyes. Apparently, part of Mary’s plan is to so disorient and distract Hanna with the physical anomalies of the car that Hanna is no longer capable of ratiocination and will gladly enter whatever home Mary has in mind. Kids, that’s the oldest trick in the book!” –SgtSaunders

“Margo reflects? We all know that Margo casts no reflection.” –Nekrotzar

“Few Halloween home decorations are as frightening and repulsive as the Man’s Back Hair Sofa Slipcover.” –Chareth Cutestory

“You’d think that a comic that features a woman who has slept with the newest James Bond star and has the latest Bond girl as a client and confidante would be about people leading glamorous lives. Yet here we are.” –Hibbleton

“It’s sad that the Sweet 16 Cafe, once a teen hangout in the 1950s, is now focused on an aging clientele holding on to the bittersweet memories of young love.” –SKJAM!

“Man, that Bill Ellis must really hate Cherry. When he sends Mark on a fishing trip or a safari, he goes alone, but when he sends him to snoop around a chemical plant next to a swamp, Cherry has to ride along.” –But What Do I Know?

“In all the years I’ve been reading comics, I’ve always assumed that word bubbles only existed for our own benefit, and weren’t actually present in the comic itself, like a subtitle in a movie. Today’s Mark Trail shatters that illusion by showing us a moose playfully chasing after one, like a cat with a laser pointer.” –Brad

“Please let Margo be looking at a picture of Joseph Stalin.” –seismic-2

“June will summon Kelly into her presence and demand to know why she wasn’t immediately informed about the possible prison record of the art forger employed by the mob widow who is mentoring her daughter. ‘B-but you knew all of that! The mob widow … the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town … the art forgery … Sarah blackmailing me …’ ‘Don’t change the subject, young lady! I won’t have my Sarah instructed by someone so incompetent he actually served time! Only the best for my daughter!'” –batgirl

“‘Are you ladies new here?’ asked a quavering voice. Mary turned. It was a haggard old crone, twisted and wrinkled, seemingly locked into a small scooter. She seemed … familiar, and Mary’s mind flashed back to her last memory of her mother, left in a place like this, alone. ‘Can I help you?’ the woman asked. ‘My name is Mary Worth, and I help out around here.’ Mary’s knees started to buckle. The old woman looked her square in the eyes, and Mary knew those eyes, she saw those eyes every morning in her mirror as she fixed her hair just so. ‘You look troubled, my dear,’ the crone said. ‘Come, tell me about your problems.’ Mary’s back hit the wall and she slowly slid toward the floor. ‘Mary Worth can fix all of your problems, dear.’ The woman’s scooter started to inch forward.” –Voshkod

“Here’s what I love about Dagwood. While the rest of us are worrying about mid-term elections, Ebola outbreaks, and whatever else the media is telling us to fear, Dagwood’s ‘dilemma’ is that two annual observances dedicated to mindless gluttony are overlapping and he wants to show his devotion to both without slighting either. We could, I dare say, learn from him.” –Joe Blevins

“The Jesus rays emanating from Dagwood imply that there is some divine majesty about what he’s done. Pizza slice? That’s something that you’ll buy at the fly-by-night Halloween store this weekend for half price and then forget that you have it in your closet for a few years. But add a Jack-o’-lantern head, and it’s ‘fall to the ground and shield your eyes’ time. Either this is a truly glorious moment for humanity, or somebody came up behind the artist after he finished and said, ‘Could you do something to draw more attention to the guy in the pizza costume and Jack-o’-lantern head? He’s hardly noticeable in that kitchen.'” –handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

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Herb and Jamaal, 6/30/12

I almost have to agree with Herb here? Though maybe “amazing” isn’t the word I would use. More “puzzling.” It’s puzzling to me that Jamaal is just sitting at the counter, staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular, and then suddenly chirping out fun facts about Burmese Buddhist savants. It’s not like he’s reading it from a book or anything, he just says it, as if the thought had been rolling around his skull like a marble and just now popped out. Is Jamaal high? I’m worried that Jamaal is high.

Jumble, 6/30/12

As far as Whimsical Animal Partial Nudity goes, I’ve always found Smokey the Bear’s pants-but-no-shirt look much more unsettling than Donald Duck’s shirt-but-no-pants configuration. I guess I’m just more willing to accept Donald’s sailor shirt as kind of a shorthand for a whole outfit, or maybe I’m just willingly blind to his exposed crotch. Meanwhile, Smokey really looks half-dressed to me, like a forest ranger who one day decided to go shirtless during his work in the great outdoors and show off his furry, muscular torso to the world. Admittedly, he looks classier than his friend over there in the baseball cap and too-small tank top, but still.

Ziggy, 6/30/12

Ziggy looks kind of unsettled by the prospect of someday becoming romantically involved with a dog, but, to my mind, not unsettled enough.

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Jumble, 2/22/12

Oh, look, beloved Jumble artist Jumble Jeff appears to have put me in prison, again! Fun fact about me: one of my few recurring nightmares is that I’m about to be sent away to prison for some indeterminate crime, and I’m full of dread and terror about it. That’s probably why I developed my jailhouse strategy of becoming a prison librarian, which was dashed a few years ago when I learned that prison librarians are actually employees of the local library system and not prisoners themselves. This cartoon simultaneously raises another possible strategy — becoming a member of a prison drama club — and dashes it, as “creative differences” clearly would lead to a shiv to the gut in short order.

Rex Morgan, 2/22/12

Leave it to Rex Morgan, M.D., to somehow bring organ sales into the plotline in the most simultaneously gross and boring way! Yesterday we learned that Mabel offered part of her liver to her ex-(husband? lover? still haven’t figured this out) if he would move back in with her and stop drinking. I think Rex has this dynamic 100% wrong! She’s not selling her liver-chunk, she’s bribing someone with it! Is it a crime to bribe someone with a chunk of your liver? Is this all our Congress has to do with its time, making it illegal for us to literally slice apart our internal organs and offer them to old drunks in exchange for love and cohabitation and sobriety? I guess democracy really has failed, by God.

Mary Worth, 2/22/12

There’s nothing I like better after a big promotion than putting my hands behind my head, leaning back, thinking evil thoughts, and then somehow rearranging my facial features so I look like a completely different person! (Ha ha, just kidding, I’ve never gotten a “big promotion” in my life.) How do you think Nola “earned” that office, hmm? Was it a sex thing? A cruelty thing? A cruel sex thing? I’m betting on cruel sex thing, myself.

Beetle Bailey, 2/22/12

Believe it or not, this Beetle Bailey strip actually works on a number of levels! If you want to get to its intended destination — ha ha, General Halftrack is extremely old — you could laugh along with Miss Buxley’s evocation of an archaic form of rifle that she implies the General once fired in combat, or you could just notice that he appears to have dozed off in his office chair in the middle of the workday.