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You know the drill by now, kids: I do the comment of the week, but first I remind you about my looming east coast tour!

• April 26, 7 pm, at Upshur Books in Washington, DC!
• April 28, 7 pm, at Atomic Books in Baltimore! I’m sharing this bill with Ariel S. Winter, who’ll be reading from his book Barren Cove.
• May 2, 7 pm, at the City Reliquary in Brooklyn!
• May 5, 7 pm, at Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo!

If you haven’t bought my novel yet and are planning on attending one of these events, I would ask that you hold out and buy it there, because that helps out the bookstores who have been nice enough to host me. (If you haven’t bought my novel yet and won’t be able to make it to any of these events, well, you know what to do.)

AHEM, AND NOW, your COTW!

“Yes, ‘Alfie.’ That’s short for ‘Resuscitation Alfred.’ He’s been here since the incident at the Red Cross CPR trainining class. Given what happened, they haven’t asked for it back. Alcohol swab?” –Kevin On Earth

And your hilarious runners up!

“Hootin’ Holler residents discover Dizzy-World when they’re young, and the meth labs and shine stills they slap together later are desperate attempts to maintain the pleasures of their youth.” –Oavis

“I love how unenthusiastic Creepy McProfessor looks. Like he doesn’t really want to do this, but ugh, fine, he’ll be Dawn’s weird forbidden romance if he must.” –thleeny

“Sure, it seems like a harmless enough thing to draw all your animal creatures with weirdly human features (breasts, beer bellies, life-sapping ennui), but one day, the whims of the public will force you to draw those beasts naked, and then no amount of bubble bath or wine artfully placed over the cleavage will protect you.” –Schroduck

“And the, uh, mountain of marijuana it’s sitting on? Is that part of the karst or whatever, too?” –pugfuggly

“Suffice it to say, I’m called in to consult on what kinds of solvents will dissolve bones, teeth, hair, etc. If I tell you anything more you’ll be a witness, which you do not want.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“So Harlan Jones’ everyday outfit consists of a buttoned-up polo shirt, green sports jacket and man-bag? I think it’s less likely that ‘Alfie’ is his lover than, say, his caddie.” –BigTed

“Watch yourself, Alfie. Your adorable companionship is keeping this man sane, and away from seeking another hetero-normative marriage. This may please your owner, but it will not please Mary. And Mary gets what she wants.” –Enlong

“So I told my editor, ‘she can have tits or she can have a chin, I don’t do both.’” –Dan

“‘Matty Squared’ is 10% Max Headroom and 90% the late Orville Redenbacher. Or should I say … ORVILLE DEADENBACHER. Hey, creators of Dick Tracy, you can have that one for free, as long as you promise to never give me credit.” –Kibo

“Let’s be fair to plumbers in the Pluggersverse; designing a toilet that can handle both bear and kangaroo scat probably is rocket science.” –Voshkod

“That net is sure going to make it difficult for all of Camp Swampy’s justifiably suicidal soldiers to step three feet to the right before they jump.” –Steve S

“I want to concentrate on myself, improve my mind, focus on learning. But just temporarily! Can you imagine spending a big chunk of your life on improving your mind and learning stuff? In under five years, I’ll be back to being as ignorant as they come, honest!” –seismic-2

“What’s great is you can drop Carlyle J. Chaffeur’s stunning Rex Morgan, M.D., second-panel turn into any comic strip and it just works. Hell, even Gary Brookins over at Pluggers would love material like this. ‘Pluggers are hotter than a two dollar pistol on Saturday night,’ with special thanks to Carlyle J. Chaffeur.” –Dood

“You’re so young, and vibrant, and alive. Not like my dead wife. Alright, let’s do downward dog. Like this adorable dog, which is the only thing keeping me sane, now that my wife is dead. Man, I’m really baring my soul, here. Don’t feel the need to reciprocate, it’s definitely not my intent to create an emotional low-pressure system. Are you dating? I haven’t. Not since my wife died.” –bunivasal

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And let’s give thanks to our advertisers:

• Bluebeards Original is proud to join The Comics Curmudgeon as an advertiser! Company owner Paul Kaniewski is a longtime follower of this site, to the point that it inspired him to created the famed Aldo Kelrast MySpace profile. Bluebeards has been making top-rated beard care products for ten years now, so any bearded folks or those that love them, please check out the site and try their stuff.
• Oh, yes, and my novel is something you should buy, in hardback, paperback, or ebook form! It’s called The Enthusiast, and it’s about trains, comics, stealth marketing, capitalism, and joy

If you’d like to buy advertising on the site, you can do so on a CPM basis through BuySellAds. To find out more, you can go to my BuySellAds page or just click here.

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Mary Worth, 4/15/16

Harlan dropped the “my dead wife” bomb on Dawn, confessed he’s remained single for the past five years because nobody could possible compare to his beloved, departed Sharon, and then lobbed “enough about me” back at Dawn, which admittedly seems to call for a really emotionally present response. Still, I’m not sure if this is the way to go. “Oh yeah, I’m not dating right now either! Because, uh, I need to focus on myself, you know, but I’m definitely gonna have sex! Again! Definitely not for the first time! And, uh, soon, probably!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/15/16

Dolly Pierpont has up till this point almost always appeared in widow’s weeds, mourning for the husband who died and left her alone (and also in charge of his sprawling, brutal mob kingdom). Today, though, the mourning has ended, and she’s gotten herself all glammed up. Is she seeking a new consort for her empire of crime? Her chauffer/enforcer seems to think so, but he’s out of luck.

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Beetle Bailey, 4/14/16

You might not believe it based on the nonstop stream of cruel vitriol I heap upon comics creators daily, but writing this blog over the years has actually given me a lot of sympathy for the people who write these things. Coming up with a joke a day within the same little world, every day, for years and years is hard, man, even for the team of people they have down at ol’ Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC. I mean, I get it. Some days you’re just staring at a blank panel and are trying to figure out how you can wring a few laughs out of it, and clearly, as the deadline loomed, today’s jokesmith could think of nothing except for falling off a cliff into the sweet embrace of death, which might be something they should talk to a trained therapist about. But anyway, I’d argue that the second panel here is wholly unnecessary. Beetle and Killer dully contemplating the fact that their fellow soldiers just can’t stop falling off cliffs, while staring at a handwritten note on a bulletin board that, in a plea for sanity that will surely go unheeded, urges everyone to “AVOID CLIFF”, is the funniest thing in the comics today, and probably the funniest thing to happen in Beetle Bailey ever.

Gil Thorp, 4/14/16

Boy, the softball action in Gil Thorp sure is a lot more exciting when it’s drawn like an German expressionist film, right? Pitcher and catcher stand at opposite ends of some long corridor, then suddenly are practically on top of one another, representing the way the emotional space between us can sometimes collapse into sudden moments of terrifying intimacy.

Pluggers, 4/14/16

The look of profound shame on those he-pluggers’ faces makes me think that the caption to this panel should actually be “plugger moms seem to be the only ones in the house who actually use toilet paper.”