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Happy Friday, friends! This has been a weird, short week, but fear not, we are still here for you with a comment of the week:

“I like that fact that, even in the moments before she’s getting stabbed with a frog-poison tipped arrow, the narrator in Curtis refers to the evil witch as Ms. Yahna. I guess it’s in the same style the Wall Street Journal refers to Mr. Hussein and Ms. Bathory. Respect: it’s not an official principle of Kwanzaa, but it’s nice to see it anyway.” –Voshkod

And some very funny runners up!

“I find Dolly and Billy married — and even Dolly giving birth to PJ — more believable and less nauseating than Jeffy as a wise man.” –Dan

“After a week of staring at that previous Heathcliff strip, I was so thankful for a new post that would mean not having to see Heathcliff spank mice at the top. Sadly, that seems like a more innocent time now.” –Pandrew

“For once, the goggle-eyed horror makes sense. ‘That outfit? But … Holy shit, I’m BUCK NAKED!!'” –Spunde

“We are all glossing over the main point in Mary Worth, which is that Santa Royale not only has a cake design contest, but it has a prestigious cake design contest, and also a cake design contest that has been captured on easily accessible video.” –Chris B

“What really gets me about shoe is the moon out the window. They have been drinking long enough for the moon to rise midway through the sky. I’d like to think they had all been sitting in silence, staring at nothing, until he blurted out his tragic story.” –Holly Folly

“Man, I kind of want to see the no-holds-barred cage match happening between Mary Worth’s writer and artist. ‘It’s a beauty-of-nature cake contest!’ ‘Cakes are pink and frosted, or nothing at all!’ ‘I’ll kill you, picture fiend!’ ‘Not if I kill you first, word mangler!'” –bunivasal

Thanks to everyone who put some scratch in my tip jar! And as always, we must give thanks to our advertisers:

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To find out more about how you could be thanked in this spot, and more about sponsoring this site’s RSS feed, click here.

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Better Half, 1/4/13

Here’s a fun fact, if by “fun” you mean “soul-shattering”: there is a rare condition called the Capgras delusion, in which the sufferer suddenly becomes convinced that a loved one — often a spouse or parent — has been replaced by an impostor. I’ve always been irrationally fearful of developing this myself, and have wondered if just knowing that the condition exists is enough to keep it at bay or at least understand what’s happening if it occurs, or if the delusion is so powerful that all rational thoughts flee your mind and your life becomes an unending paranoid horror. Anyway, Harriet seems to have been seized with this terrible mental illness and is demanding desperate measures to try to hold onto some tiny shred of reality, or maybe she’s just being extremely sarcastic how Stanley has become such an unattractive loser.

Dick Tracy, 1/4/13

Oops, I forgot to catch up on Christmas-week developments in Dick Tracy’s “costumed vigilante” plot, but I guess I don’t need to now because today’s strip provides a wall of text that gets us all pretty much up to date. Thanks, wall of text! I’m more concerned about that shadow lurking behind Dick, though, which may presage how he’ll adapt to the costumed chaos in his fair city. Has the new Dick Tracy creative team spent month meticulously recreating the classic vibe of the original strip, just so that they can abruptly turn it into a Batman comic when their editors stop paying attention to them?

Mary Worth, 1/4/13

Yup, those cake pics you’re looking at sure reflect the beauty of nature, Mr. Dill! With their … pink and white frosting … and garlands … and such. Yeah. Nature cakes. Hoo boy. This guy’s screwed. You’ve shackled yourself to a loser, Mary, do you hear me? A loser!

Curtis, 1/4/13

I was going to complain that this year’s Curtis Kwanzaa tale wasn’t insane enough, but that was before an adorable tiny primate stone cold stabbed a lady in the neck.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/3/13

There was a certain amount of of complaining around here yesterday about a plot point that I failed to bring up in my year-end review: namely, that Rex and June have succeeded in creating an embryonic human, presumably with their naughty bits. The reason I ignored this is because there wasn’t anything super funny about the way it was presented, but I am sort of intrigued by how subtly giddy the prospect of renewed fatherhood is making Rex. I have only vague memories of who “Melissa” is — I’m pretty sure she’s the cranky old lady who we met like three plot twists ago, who owns the building that her grandson is letting strippers have sexy cancer fundraisers in. Maybe she’ll help out! Maybe human beings are basically good! We’ll never know unless we ask! Who wants more margaritas! Oh wait I guess I’m drinking for two now, aren’t I June! Ha ha ha!

The unexplained tight-shirted lady wandering through the foreground panel one is a good example of why stripper storylines are a harsh mistress. You’ve committed to a boobtastic plot now; sure, your narrative might demand that you spend a little time away from Chez Exotic Dancer, but your readers know what they want, and they want women with prominent breasts.

Shoe, 1/3/13

They say that literature can make you feel like you’ve visited exotic places you’ve never been to, and it’s certainly true that, thanks to its recurrent appearance as a locale in Shoe, I feel very familiar with a certain category of terribly sad fern bar circa 1979 or so. Just look at those three faces in panel one, emotionally deadened in various harrowing ways; the fact that the bird-man on the right is talking about a botched suicide attempt should certainly come as no surprise to anyone.

Mary Worth, 1/3/13

Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Dill, did you think you were in charge of your own entry in this cake-design contest? Well, you aren’t. You asked for Mary’s help, and when you ask for Mary’s help, you do it Mary’s way.