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Your COTW coming momentarily, but first I have a very important notice from faithful reader Eloriane!

I don’t know how close you are to Ohio, but in case some nearby Curmudgeons were interested in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I wanted to let you know that according to this site, Tom Wilson, the creator of Ziggy, will be doing book signings at the following times and locations!

• 3/5/09 7:00 PM at Barnes & Noble — Montgomery Road. Cincinnati, OH.
• 3/6/09 7:00 PM at Barnes & Noble — Olentangy River Road. Columbus, OH.
• 3/21/09 2:00 PM at Barnes & Noble — Chagrin Blvd. Woodmere, OH.
• 3/25/09 7:00 PM at Borders Books — East Liberty Street. Ann Arbor, MI.

How could you resist?

I will be very impressed if anyone of you go to one of these events and ask hard-hitting questions like “So why doesn’t Ziggy wear pants?” or “No, but seriously, they’re still publishing Ziggy books?

And, um, I think that’s it, but I have a nagging notion that I promised to announce or feature something for someone in a COTW post and have failed to do so. If you are that person, feel free to e-mail me.

And now, without further ado … your comment of the week!

“Why yes, starting my morning with a glimpse at the biggest frown Tommie is capable of was great. Thank you for asking.” –Gnoll

And your runners-up! Very funny!

“Nothing deflates a guy like Gary like the arrival of Margo. You can actually hear the ‘sigh’ of the air escaping from his erection.” –buckyswife

Re: Darrin’s return in FW: “Hey, folks! I was a teenager last time you saw me, now I’m twenty-seven with a receding hairline! Isn’t life in the Winkerverse great?” –commodorejohn

“If I were Gary I would gently suggest the possibility of a relaxing menage à trois instead of dinner, to relieve the building sexual tension. But I am not Gary. Instead, apparently, I am a very, very, very sick person.” –un malpaso

“Margo already knows what’s for dinner: the rich, delicious sadness she inflicts in those around her. She’s just rubbing it in for extra flavor.” –Rhekarid

“Judge Parker Editor: ADD A HOT CHICK IN A BLACK DRESS TO PANEL 3! Wilson and/or Barreto: Umm, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with today’s strip. I/We think we should just have Sam and the new Judge Parker again. Editor: I DON’T PAY YOU TO THINK, I PAY YOU TO SHOW HOT WOMEN REACTING TO WHAT MEN SAY AND DO!!!” –rhymes with puck

“‘Goodbye, romance!’ ’Cause when Margo cockblocks you, you stay cockblocked … forever!” –Donald the Anarchist

“Maybe Confey’s proposition is going to be a sporting wager among gentlemen to see which of them can reach Vietnam by hot-air balloon within 80 days. Either that, or he offers to buy Jeff’s daughter Adrian for a couple of hundred bucks, and then makes the check out to ‘Vietnam.'” –Trilobite

“In Funky Cancerincest, I believe the ‘*’ stands for ‘sucks’, the ‘@’ for ‘moose’, and the ‘#’ for ‘cock’. The ‘s’ at the end makes it plural.” –Harold

“Ha ha, Cathy is going to spend a week pooping out acai berries! Sadly, that thought may represent the funniest thing ever to be prompted by Cathy.” –Gallowglass

“‘I know most women prefer white, but you, my love, are not most women!’ So instead I am sending you a bridal gown in red and gold, as is more nearly appropriate for the Whore of Babylon, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth, as she rides astride the seven-headed beast with ten horns. Enjoy!” –seismic-2

“Bil looks positively gleeful with anticipation. ‘Oh, I’m gonna hear some malapropisms today!’ ‘What’s that on your pants Daddy?’ ‘Malapropjism!'” –Donald the Anarchist

“It’s true: Margo is NOT most women. Nor is she mostly woman. She’s about 30% woman (skin, eyelashes, femur), 30% titanium alloy (organs, musculature, other femur), 25% fiber-optic wiring (nervous system, scalp), and the remaining 15% is all Amduscas, (a Grand Duke of Hell who commands twenty-nine legions of devils), baby.” –Lettuce

“I really identify with Junior. That’s the exact face I make every time Marvin talks.” –150

“While this will probably be the most boring couch-orgy ever, it will also probably be the longest; no one will even take off a tie until sometime in June.” –Tlachtga

“Please, if you could count the time you spent online with someone as ‘dating,’ I’d be engaged to Salma Hayek by now.” –BigTed

“Dr. Jeff isn’t punching himself in the face; he’s trying to will a handgun into existence to blow his brains out.” –Judas Peckerwood

“Proper response to the question ‘Is this that guitar game?’ when holding stoopid plastic guitars in front of the TV: ‘No it’s that banging your old lady game and these are our giant plastic penises’.” –Hopscotch Willie

“Listening to the ranger and Mark Trail today, I can’t help but think the two of them should be wearing snuggies and stroking cats while they have this conversation. Perhaps tea would be nice. One of them should mention Patty’s drinking problem and then the other can segue to persons heretofore unmentioned. They’re my Aunt Judy and neighbor Bonnie with male genitalia. Well, at least the ranger.” –Dingo

I give prodigious thanks to those who put some money in my tip jar — you know who you are! I’d also thank our advertisers … if there were any who bought BlogAds ads, and who thus get thanked every week! Sadly, there aren’t any this week — maybe next week I’ll be thanking you! To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.

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Hi and Lois, 2/23/09

Internal rivalry is apparently bursting through to the surface over at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC! It’s as if the project leader over in the Hi and Lois division got a sneak peak at the Beetle Bailey that ran Saturday and said, “Why, that’s not how do a cartoon about a woman irritating her husband by damaging the family car! Team, by the end of this three-hour creative meeting, we’ll have figured out how to both make the strip’s basic plot more comprehensible, and manage to convey the husband’s anger about the car without making the characters’ marriage seem like a soul-crushing prison!” True, it’s not like the final joke is “funny” per se, but that maybe seems like asking a lot.

Wizard of Id, 2/23/09

Though I’m not enough of a cryptozoological enthusiast to be up on the psychology of dragons, I am a bit confused about why one would, when informed of the untimely death or injury of its mother, respond with fire-breathing rage rather than, say, weeping. Theory: the strip originally implied that the dragon’s mother was involved in sexual congress with a phallically shaped jumbo jet (with Sir Rodney’s jab including the phrase “hit it”), but was censored at the last minute by the prudes at the syndicate.

Mark Trail, 2/23/09

“Yeah, I know it’s rough! It’s a good thing I’m all set for money, what with those three stories I write a year for that wildlife magazine! Seriously, remember that time I gave that little girl a puppy? I made more doing that than most doctors make in a year, plus a sweet per diem!”

The mystery of how Ken could be this storyline’s villain without facial hair has been solved. Obviously Patty is being slapped around and terrorized by the economy, not her put-upon husband. All will be well in that marriage once again once Ken gets a six-figure government check as a result of a provision of the stimulus package that timber industry lobbyists managed to sneak in at the last minute.

Luann, 2/23/09

Thing I will see in my nightmares for weeks and weeks: TJ’s perpetual death-rictus of a face looking even more skull-like than usual as he waggles his fingers in mid-air and cackles “Then shred, dude!” “THEN SHRED, DUDE!” [shudder shudder shudder]

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Mary Worth, 2/22/09

As if the sad outcome of all this weren’t being telegraphed obviously enough, we now have the “getting engaged far too soon” revelation, which surely presages disaster. But I’d like to pause for a moment to savor the sentence “Two months, half of the time online.” I don’t think anyone who met on a Web site dedicated to matchmaking (Match.com, Yahoo! Personals, Manhunt, etc.) would consider the pre-meeting exchange of information to constitute “dating”; obviously Ted and Adrian first encountered each other in some specialized online community (the Marcus Welby, M.D. fan boards, say, or pencilmoustachecare.com). Their love grew over a series of weeks in anguished discussion board posts, e-mails, and emoticon-laden chat sessions before one of them finally was able to fly across the country to meet the other in the flesh for the first time. Thus, Dr. Jeff is punching himself in the final panel not because he’s posing for his yearbook photo, but because he’s hoping the pain can distract him from the intrusive image of his daughter and some dude who looks like the Cary Grant’s romantic rival in some forgotten 1940s romantic comedy IMing each other while masturbating furiously.

Slylock Fox, 2/22/09

ANSWER: The lumberjacks may be bear-like things, but they drive a truck, operate power tools, work for a multinational timber-harvesting corporation, and otherwise participate in modern capitalist society. Brendan, meanwhile, is just an animal that lives in the forest and bites trees until they fall down. He has no property rights. I don’t care if he’s wearing a pink t-shirt.