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You may have noticed for the past few days that I’ve been posting comics very early in the morning, only a few hours after they go live on the Houston Chronicle site. It was almost as if I were somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone, where these comics were available at 10 p.m. It was almost as if I were in San Diego, spending time — oh, I don’t know, maybe making fun of a Spider-Man movie with Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy!

If you’re not familiar with RiffTrax, you’d better get familiar with it, right now! RiffTrax is a project in the spirit of MST3K. It makes a clever end run around the issues of film licensing: you download the hilarious commentary on MP3, and then rent the DVD and watch them together. And on September 5, for a mere $2.99, you’ll be able to listen to one with me!

It will probably not shock you to learn that I’m a huge Mystery Science Theater fan, and that the show really influenced my writing. In terms of living out childhood dreams, probably the only thing that could have topped this would be getting to serve on the U.S.S. Enterprise with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. It was an honor, and it was a blast! Movie Spidey gets into a slightly greater number of tussles with supervillains than newspaper comic strip Spidey, but if anything he whines and mopes even more. I’ll let you all know when the MP3 is up!

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Beetle Bailey, 8/27/08

Focus groups conducted by Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC determined that last Wednesday’s strip, which contrasted General Halftrack’s lecherous fantasies about his comely secretary against the more staid reality for comic effect, greatly reduced the strip’s effectiveness among one of its key demographics — namely, lonely perverts who like to imagine having sex with Miss Buxley. So this one’s for you, sickos! Look, she’s exhausted because she spends her evenings taking Ecstasy and participating in orgies with other hot cartoon ladies and one dude who looks exactly like you. Are you happy now? Huh?

Gasoline Alley, 8/27/08

Speaking of cartooning sex appeal, Gasoline Alley has decided that its previous attempts to titillate were just too subtle. So enjoy some cartoon ass-crack from this once-proud franchise, everybody!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/27/08

Today’s Rex Morgan, M.D., provides us with not one but two smashingly entertaining examples of classic Rex dickishness. First he feigns ignorance so as to imply that his elderly patient might be working on some kind of sex doll to keep her company in her lonely old age; then, after passive-aggressively getting her to admit that she needs his help on the boat, he cheekily wishes her luck and tells her that something will come along to solve her problem. Well played, sir!

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Apartment 3-G, 8/26/08

Wait a minute — who is this mousy, bespectacled woman, and what have they done with Sam? Damn it, I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that Margo is such an awful, terrifying, and desperately sexy boss that she leaves a trail of emotionally shattered personal assistants in her wake, but I at least would have liked to see the quitting scene, full of recrimination and tears and cold, cruel laughter.

I apparently didn’t feature her in any of the strips in my archives, but this woman actually looks an awful lot like one of the cowed servants of the sinister Mr. Eldon, who held Margo captive in his sweatshop in the famous “More zippers, mule!” storyline. I’d like to think that, once she had a few years to get over that whole enslavement thing, she and Eldon got together for a productive talk about management techniques.

Blondie, 8/26/08

Hey, everybody! Did you enjoy the past two weeks of Dagwood sitting in front of the TV and making lame, nonspecific jokes about the Olympics that were obviously written weeks in advance? Then you’re going to love the next two weeks of Dagwood sitting in front of the TV and making lame, nonspecific jokes about the political conventions that were obviously written weeks in advance!