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Your COTW coming shortly, but first! You might recall that last fall I was sentenced to prison in the Jumble. Well, according to this past Sunday’s edition, I’ve been freed but sentenced to almost as sad a fate: toiling in the dying print newspaper industry!

Appropriately, the Sunday Jumble is nearly impossible to find online, but faithful reader queek took a picture of his physical “news-paper” and sent it to me! I include the adjacent bridge column so you can get the full experience of reading this the way our primitive forefathers did.

Also, this is not really comics related, but, indulge me: speaking of things that will kill print, I somehow briefly bamboozled my way onto CNN as a “tech analyst” (thanks to one of my other gigs) talking about the supposedly exciting upcoming Apple tablet thingie. My 15 seconds of glory begin at about 0:33 on this video. Despite my unabashed Apple fanboyness, I express some ambivalence about the future success of this device!

If it appears that I’m not looking at anyone in particular, that’s because I’m not! I filmed this in a closet-sized room in CNN’s Washington studio, and the people actually putting the segment together were in New York, so I was just talking to a disembodied voice in my ear. I swear that I said funny things during my filming session, but alas none of them came through in the segment, and I admit to being jealous of the Motley Fool dude’s “iManPurse” line. My tie, at least, looks good. Also, Wolf Blitzer was in line ahead of me at the makeup station, and his beard is even more fluffy and magical in person.

Ahem! And now that that narcissism is out of the way … your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“In Rex Morgan, MD, The Movie, I would like the part of Sarah to be played by Danny DeVito.” –Ned Ryerson

And the runners up! Very funny!

“When a goose with a thirty foot wingspan warns me to stay out of his end of the lake, I usually comply.” –AndyL

“Sam’s hands are so furry I’m tempted to believe he’s evolving a sophisticated array of sensitive cilia that warns him when Abbey is getting too close. I shudder to imagine his matted back.” –trey le parc

“Are Rocky and Godiva known to the tabloids as ‘Gocky’, or ‘Rodiva’?” –imperturbe

“It looks to me like Dagwood and Herb have joined one of those door-to-door religious cults — maybe ‘BREAKFAST FOR BUDDHA’ — with their matching bacon-layered briefcases and wacky waffle shoes. There’s no god like a syrupy god.” –R in CT

“Still, there’s something special about the way Mary’s eyes light up in the second panel with all the warmth of xenon laser death beams suddenly acquiring a target. If there’s a problem, yo, she’ll solve it.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Mary’s just disturbed because Dawn only gave her a half-baked version of the Nazi salute. ‘Look, Dawn, we’ve gone over this and over this. Do I have to show you how to hail me properly AGAIN?'” –Amateur

“I love the look on Mary’s face in panel two, just like someone who in passing puts a quarter in an airport slot machine and hits a $50,000 jackpot. For the mere investment of a ‘hope you had a nice holiday,’ she receives an e-ticket to the schadenfreude express.” –Sans Sense

“Come now — it’s called ‘foreshadowing.’ Or maybe ‘side-shadowing.'” –Zla’od N

“I can’t be the only one who can’t look past the bizarrely bright nighttime of Blondie? Perhaps the colourists spend so much time bathed in white florescent light while chained to their desks that they have never experienced darkness?” –Anonymous

“For some reason, the artist of Mary Worth thinks that extreme closeup = extreme emotion, usually negative. If ever we see someone in a killing rage, presumably it’ll just be a drawing of enormous eyes, possibly framed by downturned eyebrows.” –Carly

“That Blondie strip is obviously a glimpse into an alternate universe in which Dagwood and Herb are a hilariously argumentative gay couple. And in the daytime, the sky is black.” –Super King

“My growing suspicion that Wilbur Weston has never actually had sex in his life has since led me to suspect that Dawn actually sprang, fully formed, from his forehead. Which would explain the comb-over.” –mojo

“It appears as if the lake itself is yelling at the Parker Brothers in panel one. Perhaps this isn’t a fight between the brothers and the dudes in the canoe, but a violent battle between the personification of water and people who haven’t realized that hairstyles have evolved since 1973.” –Patrick

“I think Chip’s friend works as an organ-grinder’s monkey on the weekends.” –bats :[

“Oh, please. Winter or summer, Chip and friend would be doing the exact same things: playing Wii or surfing for porn. I’d update the septuagenarian writers of Hi and Lois on advances in technology, but I don’t know how to send them a telegram.” –DaveyK

“I’d think the easiest way for Hootin’ Holler residents to care for their personal hygiene is with their disturbingly capacious tongues.” –jvwalt

“Tonight! The Keane Kids and Max Von Sydow star in Ingmar Bergman’s Frosty The Snowman.” –Rachel K

“What, exactly, is Ted Forth wearing? Some kind of Masonic snuggie?” –Joe Blevins

“The Family Circus is turning into Calvin & Hobbes so slowly that we’ll never see them get to the good part.” –Kibo

“Dennis has failed to learn the valuable lessons of this week’s FC: Snowmen are, at best, fleeting friends. To love a snowman is to know death.” –Rusty

“On what planet do teenage comic book nerds NOT already know the history of comic book characters? If this was reality, a ‘back in the good old days’ comment like that would be met with five hours of nitpicking and debate until the old dude just went and shot himself to make the trivia stop.” –Carrie

“‘Steve Luhm’s been giving Micah Huang some pointers’? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? And by ‘it’, I mean being thrust into the world of womanhood by a janitor in a closet that that smells of bleach and dashed dreams.” –skullcrusherjones

“Dagwood, stop bothering that poor man about the bird and get to the real burning issue: what on Earth is he wearing? Are they making mustard-yellow maternity wear for men now?” –Roger

“If I were that little guy, I’d be concerned about what Billy’s got in his pocket. Never bring a snowball to a knife fight.” –Makya

“I’m in luck! Sabretooth can’t find me! Or hear someone yelling from ten feet away, because his four evenly-spaced faces leave no room for ears!” –He Brought Queenie Baby Jesus

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Herb and Jamaal, 1/25/10

Good lord, Herb and Jamaal, I think it would be best for you to stick with what you know — risible non-specificity — because when you try to make up actual names for the inhabitants of your fictional universe, you fail in discombobulating ways. I admit to being totally baffled as to what image “Who Waa Twang” is supposed to evoke — some horribly misguided attempt to create a Chinese or African name, maybe? I’m also having a bit of difficulty buying Herb, who has two young children and a sprightly mother-in-law, as being old enough to have even as a child enjoyed an art form that had more or less vanished by 1955. It’s possible that he managed to convince a significantly younger woman to marry him, since his diminutive stature might have made him appear younger in her eyes.

One thing I do like is the fact that The Guy Who Played “Who Waa Twang” is still an imperious, self-centered ass, like the movie star he is. Fishing saliva-covered false teeth off of the no doubt filthy floor? That’s for the little people! TGWP“WWT” (as they call him in the tabloids) doesn’t bend over to pick stuff up when there are adoring fans to do it for him, and there always adoring fans to do it for him.

Family Circus, 1/25/10

It’s true that I’ve been on a bit of a Family Circus run of late, but how can I not be when it’s so continually and hilariously cruel? My favorite part about today’s panel is the smug little smile on Billy’s face in the background. Clearly Billy realizes that his little brother is so monumentally stupid that he’s literally forgotten how to walk. Perhaps he’s been out there for days, holding that snowball and hoping someone will come within range; it would explain the pile of snow that’s accrued around his feet.

Gil Thorp, 1/25/10

There’s nothing that turns Gil and Mimi Thorp on more than inappropriately matchmaking with their students! Cassie Corman, for those not following along, is a just-turned-18 senior engaged in a tempestuous and parentally unapproved affair with Ray, a pizza jockey with few social or economic prospects. Obviously her parents will be thrilled when she ditches this lout for Steve Luhm, a college drop-out and high school janitor, who under certain conditions might appear to be marginally higher on the social ladder.

Judge Parker, 1/25/10

Whoah, older Spencer adoptee Neddy will soon at last be returning from her Paris sojourn! And with a new boyfriend to boot. I’m intrigued by Sam’s “How young … and how talented?” question, as he appears to be trying to find the sweet spot between “Neddy is shacking up some some 45-year-old has-been” and “Neddy is molesting a child prodigy.”

Also, when Neddy left for Paris (four years and an artist ago in real time, which is, what, three weeks ago in strip time?) she had some boyfriend to whom she tearfully bid goodbye by doing some kind of cool tongue thing, so there’s sure to be room for drama!

Spider-Man, 1/25/10

Whee, Spidey’s thrilling tales of cowardice continue! “I’ve made myself safe by hiding from Sabretooth! Maybe I could make the city safe … by hiding more effectively! I can’t see anything going wrong with this plan, in the sense that if I can’t see it happening because I’m not around to see it, I won’t know about it!”

Blondie, 1/25/10

“I mean, you might think that a genuine pink-and-purple macaw would be pink and purple! But that’s a rookie mistake.”

UPDATE: Uh, speaking of mistakes, as several commentors pointed out, that’s a pink-and-purple beaked macaw, with the coloring actually pretty good for once. The Comics Curmudgeon regrets the error.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/25/10

Wait, the mule is Looweezy’s aunt? And is also related to her husband somehow? Hootin’ Holler’s kinship networks are even more unsettling than I would have imagined.

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Family Circus, 1/24/10

I’m pretty sure that the panels here have been both mislabelled and put in the wrong order. Our story begins in panel two, which is the moment when Mommy realizes that she needs to leave her kiddie-vomit-smeared life behind her, forever. In panel one, she wakes up alone in a single bed in some fleabag hotel, grateful to be forever free of her suffocating family. Among the responsibilities she’s left behind is hygeine, and in panel three her fellow elevator passengers take disapproving note of her noticable body odor. To her, that funk smells like freedom, sweet freedom.

Beetle Bailey, 1/24/10

The reasons why the soldiers of Camp Swampy would want to stand by and cheer as their seargant suffers physical pain should be obvious. But what’s with the rigamarole with his being ordered into the dentist chair? Does it serve any purpose other than to turn the perfectly servicable daily strip represented by the bottom row of panels into a Sunday strip? My guess is that odor of Sarge’s decaying teeth and putrefying gums was becoming so noticeable and distracting that his dental health had to be improved in the interest of maintaining unit cohesion.

Funky Winkerbean, 1/24/10

“Yeah, you kids today and your moral ambiguity! In our days, heroes were heroic, like Speedball, who’s named after an awesome combination of heroin and cocaine!”

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/24/10

Sorry, Dennis, the only way these lines might qualify as “menacing” would be if afterwards you headed down to the graveyard to find some well preserved corpse bits to piece together.

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., and Judge Parker, 1/24/10

Fun fact that newcomers to the soap opera comic scene might not know: Judge Parker and Rex Morgan have different artists, but are both written by the same guy, Woody Wilson. I’m assuming that his scripts for both strips today included prominent use of the phrase “ass crack.”