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Apartment 3-G, 1/6/09

Oh, Margo! Even when you’re busy snooping and destroying evidence all by yourself, you can’t help but indulge yourself in a little free-form bitchery. And that’s OK; you need to practice to keep yourself in fighting shape. But I question whether anyone wearing that vest/button-shirt combo — you’re one cameo away from being the cover girl for the next issue of Hot Western Schoolmarm Monthly — has a right to impugn the aesthetic choices of others. Admittedly, I’m not sure I’d have wanted something in my living room that was so … aqua, even before I married a woman with impeccable taste in interior design, but the larger problem is that the leather couch doesn’t scream “bachelor” so much as it screams “chair,” what with it being only wide enough for one person to sit on it and all. I know New York apartments are small, but still.

Family Circus, 1/6/09

I was planning on waxing pretentious about how this panel neatly encapsulates American middle class anxieties and explains both why we passed the PATRIOT Act and why we don’t let little kids play outside anymore, but then I realized that I should just relax and enjoy the sight of a couple Keane Kids in a moment of terror, right before they’re mauled by a vicious dog. It’s kind of impressive that they can still dish out the adorable puns even as they panic.

Phantom, 1/6/09

The Phantom plotline just concluded involved a madman attempting to use bats as biological weapons agents, only to eventually become infected with deadly Ebola himself, yet was so boring that I managed to not comment on it at all and could barely remember what it was without going back and checking. Thus, while an optimist might insist any plot that begins with horrible scaly fish-men from the briny sea must be promising, I have my doubts. I am amused by the fact that that these tailèd sea beasts are demurely wearing loincloths, to protect our innocent eyes from their hideous blue mer-penises.

ELECTION VICTORY UPDATE: Remember, you can vote once every 24 hours for this site in the 2008 Weblog Awards Best Humor Category! Yes, it’s true that I’m already pretty far ahead, but you should vote for me anyway because I desperately crave the sort of emotional validation that only a crushing victory over my enemies will bring. And you should also help Ces Marciuliano is his noble quest for fourth place in the Best Comic Strip Category.

SITE UNPLEASANTNESS UPDATE: As I noted yesterday, some readers (including yours truly!) have noted unpleasant redirects and pop-up ads when visiting this site. I’ve taken off the ads that might be the origin of the problem, but the evil may lurk elsewhere. If you have seen any of these nasties within the last 24 hours or so, please email me, or chime in in the comments.

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Your somewhat truncated comments of the week are coming up, but first! As I mentioned earlier, I have been nominated for Best Humor Blog at the 2008 Weblog awards! As I discovered when I rocketed to the top of the list in the hot blogger competition, these things are all about setting your minions free to stuff the ballots, and luckily for all of you itching to do so, the polls are now open! Go, vote early and often! (I’m not advocating fraud; you really are allowed to vote once every 24 hours for as long as the polls are open, which will be for another week.)

But this blog isn’t the only nominee near and dear to my hearts! You may also find it in you to cast votes for the following:

• Wonkette, for which (if you don’t know) I write a weekly column about political cartoons, has been nominated for Best Liberal Blog.
• Sally Forth writer/faithful reader Ces Marciuliano’s online comic offering, Medium Large, has been nominated for Best Comic Strip.
• Faithful reader Alex Blaze’s Bilerco Project has been nominated for LGBT blog.

At some point in the next 24 hours or so I will try to figure out how to put a graphic up top that will REMIND YOU TO VOTE FOR ME AND CES AND ALEX REPEATEDLY. And hey, if there are faithful readers out there who have also been nominated (fully possible, as there are like a gazillion categories), just let me know and I will shamelessly promote you.

On a less fun note: A couple of readers have written me with reports of odd redirects and pop-up windows when visiting this site. I am trying to figure out of these are isolated incidents or possibly indicative of more serious problems with my server. So please e-mail me or chime in the comments if you’ve run into similar problems. (UPDATE: I have now removed some recently added ads that may be the source of the problem. Please let me know if you continue to see these nefarious pop-ups.)

And now: your comment of the week!

“I really can’t think of a single plot I’ve read in Spider-Man that couldn’t have used a ‘special note to perplexed readers’. Personally I could have used notes like ‘that is a magic spider-sense resistant brick’, ‘that fat guy is tougher than he looks’, and especially ‘yes, Peter really is too stupid to remember he is walking around with full length underwear on during the summer.'” –rhymes with puck

And the runners up! Also hilarious!

“I believe Brooke has built himself the largest Suspension Bridge of Disbelief in the world, starting with a priggish teenage dancer who also just happens to be an accomplished pianist, who is paired with a geeky boy cellist who can manage to kiss his girlfriend despite the fact that neither of them have chins. After all that, showing a former parochial school couple capable of having hand-sex that inspires the world just sort of falls into place on the bridge.” –True Fable

“When I first saw the Gasoline Alley Christmas Greeting strip, I thought I should cut it out and attach it to a whiskey bottle. Then I realized I didn’t own any whiskey cheap enough. In the end, I found a used bottle that once contained generic diet cola, glued on the December 25 strip, and filled it with gasoline. If you drink enough of that, Gasoline Alley suddenly starts to make sense. That happens right before you go blind, which can also improve Gasoline Alley.” –Adjuster

“Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, our latest facial hair sporter comes across a dead animal, a development which despite being entirely expected in a swamp full of people who kill animals for fun, still seems to surprise him. Or maybe he’s just angry he wasn’t there for the good part.” –gogiggs

“So is the big Spider-Man change just that every day, there will be a text box explaining that there is a big change?” –Anne

“Spider-Man/ Spider-Man/ Shunted into the/ Past by Stan/ He was trapped/ Now he’s free!/ He loves Aunt/ May’s T.V./ Let’s watch/ Cable with Spider-Man!” –Angry Kem

“The next surprise in Spider-Man will come on Feb. 17, when analog television broadcasting is turned off. Spider-Man will spend the rest of the year trying to find out what happened — assuming of course, you consider sitting in front of the television, looking at static, and yelling at it a form of trying to find out what happened.” –Worthinator

“I think this marks a bold new direction for the strip. Ditch the costumed crime-fighting angle. That wasn’t working anyway. Now the strip will be about how Peter Parker dozes off every couple of weeks and awakes to find himself in a different historical era with different tentative plans for his midday meals.” –Joe Blevins

“I’m hoping that Sam is followed around by large, tangible sound effects for the rest of his miserable days. They can change according to his mood and the moods of those around him, which generally will mean the air being filled with repetitions of the words ‘DISAPPOINTED SIGH’, on most occasions.” –richbachelor

“I know this should really go without saying, but I hate Mary Worth. She’s so infuriated by the thought of a stranger being able to raise his own child without her input that it’s actually causing her neck pain. Next up for Mary: a Vicodin and Flexeril addiction and the inability to urinate that comes with it.” –bitter law student

“Even as a child, I thought the way Blondie and Dagwood’s chairs were arranged (so that she never has to see whatever disgusting, food-based perversions he finds on late-night cable) was unspeakably depressing. It’s like they used to have separate dens, until a ‘marriage counselor’ with ‘new ideas’ suggested that they spend more time together. This almost, sort-of, counts.” –Sarah

“I’d say Beetle Bailey is about to retcon himself back to college, but without a third panel explicitly saying so I can’t be certain.” –Comrade Denny

“Attracting Mark’s Attention In Ten Easy Steps. Chapter 1. Wrong: I hope he notices I’ve changed my hair. Right: I hope he notices I’ve groomed my pelt.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

I must give a hearty thank you to everyone who’s put cash in tip jar! And our advertisers know how a clean election is run:

• Hot blogger action: If you only buy one sexy calendar this year, make sure it’s this one, featuring your Comics Curmudgeon, Josh Fruhlinger! Plus Sally Forth scribe Ces Marciuliano, and other hot dudes. Also available: a calendar full of hot blogging ladies. Don’t miss out!

To find out more about advertising on this site, click here.

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Mark Trail, 1/5/09

With yet another Mark-spurns-a-pretty-non-wife-lady plotline behind us, it looks as if Mark Trail is finally going to touch the third rail of Mark Trail storytelling, by tackling the pretty wife-lady whose advances Mark also routinely spurns. Cherry is so worked up that she’s dispensed with her usual polo shirt and put on a sexy pink robe that’s allowing us to see her collarbone. “I hope he notices that I’ve changed my hair again!” she says, as she gingerly touches the vaguely rearranged curls perched upon her unnaturally large skull and stares at nothing in particular with her horrifying pink eyes. All the while, she’s thinking about her plans to fall on Mark and ravish him the moment he walks in the door, like an owl grabbing a mouse in its razor-sharp talons and tearing it to bits with its beak, only hotter, and with Mark maybe not being killed at the end.

Meanwhile, Doc is thinking “I hope he notices that I’ve paired up this baby blue cardigan with my orange shirt! I think the color combo really does wonders for me!” But he’s too shy to say this aloud, so he just stands there smoking his pipe, and waiting.

Beetle Bailey, 1/5/09

As you may or may not know, for the first six months of its 58-year existence, Beetle Bailey was actually a college strip, following the antics of Beetle and his fraternity brothers; then, one day in March of 1951, Beetle spotted the two girls he was dating both heading towards him simultaneously, ducked into an Army recruiting office to escape, and has been in the military ever since as the subject of some kind of terrifying black-ops time-freezing experiment. The draft has ended and he completed his term of service decades ago, so technically he can leave whenever he wants; however, as his totally neat and keen outfit today suggests, the still twenty-year-old Beetle is completely unequipped to deal with modern collegiate life, with its Facebooks and casual sex and kids wearing flip-flops in the dead of winter for some reason. He will no doubt go crawling back to his captors at the Defense Department’s Chrono-Retardation Corps soon enough.

Crock, 1/5/09

Today’s Crock is actually a philosophical masterpiece of metanarration. Poor Figowitz’s whole purpose for existence in the world of the strip is to be an unlovable sad sack; by deciding to abandon his deepest essence and force his features into a grin, he unravels the very fabric of his universe and brings everything in it — that is, the strip Crock — to an end, plunging his world into inky nothingness. This is intriguing from a metaphysical standpoint, and heartening in that it implies that Crock will cease to exist and we won’t have to read it anymore. If we’re really lucky, the universe-collapse will also occur along the time axis, eliminating the past of the strip and our memories of ever having read it.