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Let me finish my bout of holiday Monday bloggin’ with your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Or maybe Funky’s still alive and the rest of Westview died from a sudden bout of cancer! Did I just blow your minds?” –Carlo

And the runners up! Very funny!

“Please let Jenna’s answer be ‘Speaking of johnsons…'” –Push Trot

“How does the baseball hit the hat off Archie’s head, and bonk him square on top of the skull? This, coupled with Jughead’s leaping whoopee cap, suggests one possibility to me: hats in the Archie universe have evolved sentience and are attempting to escape into a funnier comic with their jumping prowess.” –dodoman1

“I hate all the clothes on all the melonheads, but I particularly hate those recurring cuffs on Jeffy’s pants. I want to pour a lot of sand in them and then watch his helpless tears.” –Poteet

“Which will do the most damage to Mary Jane, being horribly burned by Iron Man’s rocket boots or being sucked through the jagged hole in the plane’s fuselage? The correct answer is ‘remaining married to Peter Parker.'” –Ed Dravecky

“Does anyone in Santa Royale eat at any fern-free restaurants?” –Comcis Fan

“Interests that Jenna will have, given that this is a Mary Worth-sanctioned date: babies.” –Sophie

“When I was a little kid, imagining what life would be like when I’d grow up, I pictured becoming an astronaut, or a fireman, or a farmer. I pictured adventure and romance. Never once did I ever think I’d be interested in a Funky Winkerbean plot line, anxious to see what happens next. Is he dead? What’s going on? If my six-year-old self could see me now, he’d probably start crying from shame.” –Krazy Kat

“9CL: At least at the end of Casablanca someone got shot. Are we to be denied even that tiny gratification?” –Walker of Dog

“Can anybody explain how this fits in with the ‘Tommie is being set-up for her I Dressed in the Dark intervention’? This whole production seems too elaborate to have been staged as a ruse. It’s as if the Monterey Pop Festival had been staged so Janis Joplin’s friends could tell her she needed to do something about her hair.” –Ned Ryerson

“Speaking of interests, what are some of yours? I’m guessing, dudes with chest hair. Am I right?” –Mysterious Shirtless Lawyer

“Ipecac? What? Was she out of razor blades?” –Sans Sense

“Fragile and ladylike as always, MJ is so embarrassed by the suggestive webbing that she is tactfully shielding her eyes from it.” –Joe Blevins

“Tommy’s humiliation fills me with delight! Were she not fictional, I would feel ashamed. It seems to fill Margo with rage, though. Probably because she has never managed to belittle someone on such a grand scale. Sure, she’s made grown men weep, but never in front of a full auditorium. Never broadcast on national television. She probably feels like a bit of a failure in comparison. Whoever she dates next is in deep, deep trouble.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

UPDATE: Here’s a pair of additional quotes that got considered for COTW but accidentally didn’t get pasted into this list before I published it — apologies!

“You’ve got to love Mark and Rusty’s gazing towards the horizon in hopes of spotting Sassy even though every dog in the area is running toward this old woman, to eat her.” –Black Drazon

“Perhaps some of the inky blackness slowly spreading across the turquoise night sky fell on Jenna’s face.” –LaurenM

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Apartment 3-G, 7/5/10

Oh, God, Tommie’s humiliation is going to be even more delicious than I might have hoped. “Tommie, get out here! What are you wearing, a sweatsuit? You’re letting down everyone, with your ugly clothes! God, you make me want to puke. Let’s turn the house lights up, so you can see everyone’s disgusted faces!”

Mary Worth, 7/5/10

Dear Mary Worth Creative Team: I know you submit your strips weeks in advance and all, but I can’t help but feel a bit miffed that you’ve followed up my “Jenna and Mike are on drugs” funny with a strip in which our lovers are talking in oddly lucid and detached terms about their weird, altered emotional state and the “strange buzzing” they’re experiencing, all while rubbing up against each other. Has Mary so lost faith in her meddling skills that she’s resorted to spiking her victims’ meals with Ecstasy?

Mark Trail, 7/5/10

Since the main point of this storyline is to return Sassy home so that Rusty can make another horrifically overwrought facial expression, I fail to see the point to any of this sordid unlicensed animal shelter drama; people are just competing for the Sassy reward money, as is natural and healthy in a capitalist society. “Yes, Mr. Trail, your little dog is here somewhere… wait, where is he?” “Why, is this the dog you’re looking for, sir?” “Why, yes it is, mysterious mustachio’d man! Here is your reward!” “But … but … that man stole the dog from me!” “Whatever, lady, I stopped caring about this the moment the wayward puppy was returned to me. By the way, does the zoning board know you keep all these animals here?”

Dennis the Menace, 7/5/10

Mrs. Wilson has paid Dennis and Joey to induce the heart attack that will finally free her.

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Judge Parker, 7/4/10

So it turns out that Neddy’s lunch date “Mark” was not her ex of “tongue thing” fame; that was “Bob,” proving that, for whatever his faults, Jules has at least helped break Ned’s addiction to guys with bland, WASPy names. Anyway, Mark, despite apparently being of collegiate age, has since parting with Ned gotten married and then divorced. I have to actually speak up in favor of the dialog in this strip: while soap strips are usually filled with awkward, unnatural speech, this installment is actually marked by the realistically awkward speech you’d hear when two exes with unresolved feelings get together. Mark’s final line is a nice touch. “Ned, uh, even though we discussed getting together in the near future, which would involve one of us calling the other, do I have permission to call you? Just making sure! I think about your body all the time! Uh, I mean, say hi to Jules for me!”

Funky Winkerbean, 7/4/10

OK OK WE HAVE RESOLVED THE FORM OF TIME TRAVEL UNDER QUESTION HERE, which is that Funky’s fiftysomething body has been propelled back to his high school days. This raises another question, though. Tom Batuik has said that the chronological question raised by the strip’s time-jumping — that is, whether the recent jump shoved the cast into 2017 or what — doesn’t interest him, an attitude I have sympathy with! However, if that’s not a question the strip wants to grapple with, then adding a time-travel plot isn’t the way to avoid it. How old is Funky supposed to be, anyway? I said “fiftysomething” above because that’s how he looks to me, but all Westview inhabitants are prematurely aged by grief, so I’m not actually sure at this point. If he’s supposed to be, say, 45, then he’s back somewhere around 1980, I suppose. And I’m sorry, but this crowd is looking insufficiently outrageous for the tail end of the disco era.

Panel from The Lockhorns, 7/4/10

I enjoy the vaguely simian but still contemplative look Leroy is giving that poster here. “‘Dracula,’ eh? He looks scary enough, I suppose, but he’s no The Blob.”