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Hey guys, it’s the first Friday of the month, and you (hopefully?) know what that means by now: if you’re in Los Angeles, you are required by law to come see The Internet Read Aloud, a Internet-derived live comedy show I host, tonight!

The show, the performers in it: it’s good, and we’re good. Come on out!

And with that sordid promotion of my brand out of the way, I present to you: your comment of the week!

“I like to think that the Spirit is holding the cover for one of those tortilla warmer things that they have in Mexican restaurants. It also pleases me to think that his agenda for the day goes something like this: 1. Crimefighting 2. Fajitas 3. More crimefighting” –Alex

And your extremely hilarious runners up!

“Ed’s there to have his hat surgically removed. I see they managed to get the red windbreaker off, probably with the assistance of a male nurse.” –Rusty

“This whole thing would seem classier if it were in black-and-white and Hagar and Helga spoke in stiffly-translated Swedish. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are both still around, right? ‘Cleanliness is an option available to the least of us.’ ‘Indeed. It might be preferable to keep company with swine.’ [meaningful silence]” –Joe Blevins

“I was just thinking about wolves! And also vampires, fanciful creatures that arise by night to feast on the blood of the living, preferring the youthful as a way of extending their own immortality. [Sips coffee] So … where is Rusty?” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“Boy, Thirsty there sure has a nice desk and padded chair and a big ol’ window facing the street. Is he Executive VP for Slacking Off or Removing the Last Shred of Hope and Cheer from Employees?” –Pinchers von Shellington IV

“I honestly wonder what a ‘diet’ might be in the context of Hootin’ Holler. Is that when you switch from hog’s fat to rendered squirrel paste on your toast? (And by toast I mean acorn-meal patty).” –pugfuggly

“The image of the Phantom giving birth to Orson Wells is going to haunt me for a while. I assume the man-infant’s first words involved Paul Masson wine.” –Voshkod

“Uh-oh — looks like there’s going to be a primary-colored hat mix-up in Dick Tracy. Chaos will ensue.” –Pozzo

“This is a good place for a product placement. ‘She’s popping Oxycodone like Tic Tacs. And she’s popping Tic Tacs like Oxycodone, because they are so good and refreshing!'” –Ettore

“Subject does not notice or does not care that many kitchen objects are simply floating in empty space. Instead appears to be simply content to interact with miniature dog archetype within the VR ether realm. No discernible value from continued mind harvesting at this point. Suggest termination and incineration as per protocols.” –Chareth Cutestory

“Today, the cast of Mark Trail demonstrates different ways to mishandle an offer in improv after someone in the audience yells ‘bear!’” –Steve S

“It’s 11:00 AM EST. How many times have you dropped the phrase ‘A bear isn’t going to help that at all!’ into conversation so far today?” –seismic-2

“In my memory, the Phantom universally deals with crises in a cool, collected manner even when dishing out brutal justice with gun and fist. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen him mad, not to mention flame-demon-conjuring hate-drool-producing universe-warping fury. Does he not know there are a lot of tools now that make brand-promotion and content sharing much simpler, especially across multiple platforms?” –James Dowd, on Facebook

“Is that the giant Owl Shrine from Bohemian Grove, secret club of the rich and powerful? If Mark, Cherry, and Rusty run Bohemian Grove, that goes a long way to explaining why the world is so fucked up.” –nescio

“I’m here for you, Tommy. Because I’m your mom and we live in the same house. Actually, it would be hard to avoid talking with each other since we’re the only ones living there. Don’t thank me — I’m glad to do it!” –But What Do I Know?

“Les printing out the single sentence he wrote so far instead of just showing the screen strikes me as an incredibly sarcastic and passive-aggressive way to respond to being asked to show your work.” –Noel

Thanks to everyone who became a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter to get an banner-ad-free site, put some scratch in my tip jar, or backed me on Patreon! And as ever, we must give thanks to our advertisers:

• Two Party Opera: A daily comic that features the Presidents of the United States as they live on the stage of history with the day-to-day news of political mudslinging.
• Oh hey, and don’t forget, I wrote a book! You can get it in hardback, paperback, or ebook forms. It’s called The Enthusiast, and it’s about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy.

If you would like to buy advertising on the Comics Curmudgeon, and get a text shoutout in these posts, get the details on my BuySellAds page.

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The Phantom, 3/3/17

Oh, man. Oh, man. I wish I had discussed with you you every single day of the current Phantom storyline, and also the last five to ten years of my life spent experiencing and participating in various self-marketing efforts, if it would’ve helped you appreciate how very, very funny I find this entire strip and its final panel in particular. The Ghost-Who-Walks may be the end product of a 23-generation all-white breeding experiment, and he might wear purple spandex and live in a cave in Africa and cultivate a legend of immortality and refuse to let anybody, even his wife or children, see him unmasked; but it in today’s social-media-saturated world where every single one of us is in one way or another trying to get a leg up in the attention economy, it is the Phantom’s violent refusal to let anybody promote his personal brand that sets him apart from ordinary mortals.

Funky Winkerbean, 3/3/17

Hey, remember fifteen months ago when Les had really bad writer’s block and all he could put down on paper was “Once upon a time”? Well, the part of my brain that obsessively stores comics plot trivia has blessedly failed to retain what book that was exactly, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it’s the same book he’s supposed to be writing with/for Darrin now, which he still hasn’t written any of, fifteen months later, because I want Les and everyone around him to feel bad.

Mark Trail, 3/3/17

Wow, Cherry, yesterday you were all het up about bears and ferret and prairie dog surveys and today you’re getting super aggro about tornados, and I gotta tell you: ratchet back! You can’t keep Mark safe in your cabin! He’s gonna go out there, survey some prairie dogs, punch a tornado, whatever! LET HIM LIVE HIS GOSH-DARNED LIFE, OK????

Mary Worth, 3/3/17

Boy, you know what’s gotta be a real drag? If one minute your mom is explaining how that she’ll always be there to help you through your battle with drug addiction but then she just stops in mid-sentence as she spots her boy-toy with his new girlfriend, and probably runs over there and makes a scene, much to everyone’s embarrassment. That’ll really hurt! And you know what really can dull that pain? Vicodin! Just saying!

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Pluggers, 3/2/17

You know, Pluggers has blurred the line between beasts and beast-people before, and they’ve even hinted at the kind of sexual relations that mark a universe where there’s a spectrum of sapience, but this — this is pretty explicit. Too far, Pluggers. Too far! The fact that the credit for this “joke” is given to a name that very well could be given to a dog is extremely not helping.

Gil Thorp, 3/2/17

Ugh, fine, Aaron isn’t actually on drugs, it seems; his mom’s on drugs, like far too many economically downwardly mobile Americans these days. I’m still not sure why he does well at basketball around payday? Shouldn’t that be when his mom can afford her drugs? I kind of want the payday thing to be a total red herring just to prove that the Freezy Bomb Boys were entirely wrong about literally everything.

Mary Worth, 3/2/17

Hey, speaking of America’s out-of-control opioid crisis, what’s going on in Mary Worth? Well, once again, it turns out that Iris has been so caught up in her own frivolous hobbies (before it was pursuing higher education, and this time it was fucking a 25-year-old) that she’s neglected her pill-addict son. Don’t worry, though: Jesus, who has long been Tommy’s hairstyle icon, is now also his not-giving-in-to-the-temptations-of-sweet-sweet-Vicodin icon.

Mark Trail, 3/2/17

Haha, Cherry sure seems anxious in panel two, doesn’t she? “Wasn’t someone out there doing a black-footed ferret and prairie dog survey? A bear isn’t going to help that at all! A bear can really mess up that kind of thing! I don’t remember who it was who was doing the survey exactly, but if they run into a bear, that survey is toast! This is terrible! I’m not going to be able to sleep at night, thinking about all the work what’s-his-name is putting into that black-footed ferret and prairie dog survey, which just is going to be ruined by some dumb bear!” “How’s Johnny doing? We haven’t seen him in years!” says Doc, pointedly ignoring everything his daughter is saying.

Shoe, 3/2/17

“I tried that once. It made me constantly aware of the crushing aesthetic demands that our society places on women, and let me tell you: no thanks.”