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Hey guys! I think I am going to revive a tradition I once had, where in my Friday metapost I plug some stuff I’ve written elsewhere, because why not? Surely you like me and therefore want more me, right? Anyway, here’s some stuff:

• For MEL Magazine, I just wrote an article about the little-known legal industry that allowed a weirdo billionaire to bankroll Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. Also included is why you’re suddenly hearing the phrase “vaginal mesh” so often lately (spoiler alert: hedge funds). A few months back, I wrote an article for MEL about why you really, really should pay your quarterly taxes if you’re a freelancer, newly relevant with the Q2 tax deadline just weeks away.
• I’ve also been writing some tech slideshows for CSO, on topics like why certain kinds of cyberattacks seem to come from certain countries, how the computer security breaches of yesteryear seemed more chill than today’s, and the unique security challenges that arise with working with teens.

OK! Look for more links like these in the future, assuming I write more things! (If you would like me to write freelance stuff for you, in exchange for money, feel free to email me!) But until then, here’s your comment of the week:

“‘Incidents lead me to believe too many people are lacking in some way!’ If art history doesn’t work out, Dawn’s got a great future as a lyricist for Morrissey.” –Esther Blodgett

And the very funny runners up!

“I cannot get over how much I enjoyed that panel! Spin-off idea: Sarah Stinks. A goat butts her into a glue-filled sewer.” –Adam, on Twitter

“Meanwhile, outside a recently renovated home in a newly upscale neighborhood on the edge of downtown, a young boy and his dog stagger into the yard, trailing blood. ‘We got shot!’ Mom: ‘That does it! We are definitely moving to the suburbs! Carl, get the hydrogen peroxide – that’s the new sanitizer, you know. We’ll probably need a compress and tourniquet as well.’” –cheech wizard

“Incidents lead me to believe too many people are lacking in some way! We need to dramatically reduce the global population.” –nerionaya, on Twitter

“Count Weirdly likes his robot servants to be clean shaven — so what? You might suspect that he’s up to something unsettling and odd with those smooth, smooth hairless robots. Just cause a guy is named Weirdly you assume that there’s something going on there … with those … smooth, bald, shaved, obedient, so very smooth robots. You’re projecting!” –Chareth Cutestory

“Mom’s last words were ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ Ha, just kidding. They were that you were always a profound disappointment to her and Dad.” –Ukulele Ike

“You hear that, Del? Jumbo orders! So you get back to the plant and start rendering those elephants: we need 500 gallons of pachysolvent by Monday!” –pugfuggly

“‘Christ, what an asshole’ is to New Yorker cartoons as ‘Pluggers long for the sweet release of death’ is to Pluggers.” –Mike

“That big fluffball snoozing in front of the TV is actually pretty cute. Who’s a depressing metaphor for the ultimate meaninglessness of existence? That’s right — you are, Kitty. Yes you are!” –Mustang

“It’s fun if you pretend that Mary already talks way too loud, and that the bolded words are her just shouting in a small room, as older people do. ‘I SAID IT’S WORTH KEEPING. KEEPING. KEE-PING.'” –Tigernan Douglas Quinn, on Facebook

“The best way to illustrate ‘How much is your relationship with Harlan worth to you?’ would be Mary rubbing her forefingers and thumb together, hinting that she could make it happen for as price.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, idol of a million other women

“DAWN: …and dare I say spiritual?
MARY: No, dear.
DAWN: (lowers gaze) Yes, Mary.
MARY: (sips tea)” –Dan

“I’m guessing that, being the oldest person in the community, nobody in town is going to publicly reprimand Walt for anything anymore. I mean, who would want to be seen telling the town’s oldest person to do (or stop doing) anything? Basically, that cane is diplomatic immunity in golden, club-shaped, weaponized form.” –Brady

“If only there was a wolf I could throw you both to, Papa Keane thought ruefully. He’d be my goddamn hero.” –Voskhod

“Heart … attack? Is that a type of cancer?” –A Concerned Reader

“Barstool malfunction.” –Midtown

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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Funky Winkerbean, 5/27/16

As part of the “Starbuck Jones is filming in Northeastern Ohio” plot, handsome, popular movie star Mason Jarr agreed to give the commencement address at Westview High. Naturally, as one would expect from a celebrity in the prime of his life and career, the speech is entirely about the inevitability of death.

Beetle Bailey, 5/27/16

“Long story short, there was a war and the US Army lost! I have some pictures of the new Supreme Leader we need to hang up around the house.”

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Gasoline Alley, 5/26/16

Gasoline Alley seems a little too square to engage in metanarrative chicanery, but how else should we interpret today’s strip? After weeks and weeks of a boring, convoluted prison break storyline featuring some of the strip’s most irritating recurring characters, we suddenly switch back to Walt, complaining that the ceremony in which he received the Golden Cane Of Agedness from the mayor, which we never saw in the strip, wasn’t covered properly in the media. Poor Walt! Anyway, I’m very intrigued that whatever municipality he lives in has an expensive object that can literally only be taken from its owner by prying it out of their dead, cold hands.

Mark Trail, 5/26/16

OK, let’s be real: the last few weeks of “Mark ’n’ friends try and fail to escape from the cave” have been super boring. But today at least Chekhov’s rock-climbing gun, which was prominently mounted on the wall of the set in the first act, finally goes off. We also some mid-air derring do, as Mark and Carina almost tumble to their death off a cave waterfall but Mark saves them at the last minute by jamming his rock … climbing … axe … thingy into the cliff wall. And kudos to the strip for taking as much care to acknowledge the biology of Homo sapiens as it does for the other animals it covers; whereas most action movies feature characters grabbing onto things in mid-fall and suffering no ill-effects, Mark has saved himself and Carina at the cost of shattering his rib cage, just as he would in real life.

Family Circus, 5/26/16

Haha, I love PJ’s look of heavy-lidded disdain here. “God damn it, Jeffy, enough with this ‘everyone has a valid perspective’ bullshit. Kill the wolf! Kill it!”