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OK, we’ll get to the COTW and runners-up momentarily, but first, several items of interest.

First! You may remember some days back that Uncle Lumpy posted a link to an honest-to-god real recording of “Tarzana Nights” by Kalamazoo-based songsters/madmen the New Real People. But today I am authorized to actually show you a picture of the recording session in progress (taken by faithful reader Jules), which I guarantee will blow your minds:

I would have loved to have seen the look on the face of the hapless Kinko’s employee who was handed the infamous “Ease up, friend” strip and told to blow it up to such gargantuan proportions. Remember, you can relive the magic on the New Real People’s Web site.

Speaking of Gil Thorp insanity, did you know that there’s now an official, authorized-by-the-syndicate Gil Thorp Facebook group? You young people who use the Facebook should totally join. I got the tip from the brilliant This Week In Milford blog, your source for all things Thorpian, which, naturally, also has a Facebook group. (As do I! Goodness gracious, with the technology!)

Also! I have received another adorable picture of a child wearing Comics Curmudgeon gear, in this case a Fist o’ Justice shirt. That’s little Lee, son of faithful reader Robert:

“He so does like to punch stuff!” says Robert of his four-week-old son.

Also! Faithful reader ChattyGenes posted an Aldomania ditty that you might enjoy.

And finally, at long last, brace yourself for the COMMENT OF THE WEEK!

“Mary Worth wears Depends with Snoopy’s picture on them, and the slogan ‘Happiness is a Warm Poopy.'” –The Spectacular Spider-Brick

(That’s a reference to this horror, if you’re confused.)

It was a hard choice this week, as the runners-up are also hilarious:

“I hate Curtis. I hate Curtis’ hat. Dear lord, how I hate that hat.” –Sully

“What Mr. Abner needs is a puppy!” –blueberrygrrrl

“Gosh, I remember when I was in marching band in the suburbs of Cleveland and cut out every single comic making fun of Wally playing the trombone, because gosh-dang it, I played the trombone, and it made me so happy to know that the comics pages reflected me — a Northeastern Ohio high schooler playing trombone on a muddy football field for a losing football team in the snow. Somewhere in Northeastern Ohio, an angry, cantankerous, cancerous former pizza store owner is cutting out today’s strip and proudly taping it on his refrigerator.” –Sunny Paris

“Let’s see … Dolly badly botching the lyrics to a song that only elderly people are likely to know, ending up in a malapropism. That’s it! Dolly is starting her Crankshaft training.” –Mibbitmaker

“Jack, meanwhile, clearly doesn’t know Margo very well at all. ‘Help you? Yeah, look, unless her sweater’s green because it’s actually made of money, I’m going to deal with the paintings here, thanks. Don’t let our flirtation make you think I have any interest in real human compassion — you want that crap, see if Alan will rent you Lu Ann for the hour.'” –Windier E. Megatons

“Before we enquire into Dolly’s rationale for singing boardwalk songs on Independence Day, perhaps we should determine the alcoholic content of whatever she has in that bucket.” –odinthor

“If Gabriella faints at ‘the presence of evil’ anyplace where low-level drug dealing and bad art occurs, how can she even enter lower Manhattan without immediately slipping into a coma?” –Hank

“I can’t wait for the bridezilla’ing to start. And the single malt. We’re gonna need it.” –Islamorada Girl

“Liz looks like the doll off the top of the music box, only about 10000 times more smug and entitled. ‘I did it! I finally did it! I fulfilled everyone’s expectations! Now I never have to think about anything ever again! Go me!'” –Shoebox

“Please let that be the plastic bag from the dry cleaners that Grandma Marion is preparing to clamp over Liz’s smug head. ‘Wear MY dress to marry a divorced man?! I’ll smother you first!'” –Stroker Ace

“Deanna has a pretty dreamy look as she cops a feel on Lizardbreath. Almost as if she finally has found a way to have sex with a Patterson.” –Lockestep

“What [Margo’in] reason would the Santa Royale city council have for calling two emergency meetings, two evenings in a row? More complaints about the old people smell? They’re never going to get rid of that.” –PeteMoss

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Family Circus, 7/7/08

The Family Circus has a long list of crimes that it will eventually have to answer for, but I’m hard-pressed to remember any of its offerings being as visually unappealing as today’s. Faithful reader Dean Booth has already taken things to their logical and repulsive conclusion (warning: very very very gross), so I’ll just point out that in the middle of this filth-eating mess, Jeffy appears to be concerned about his girlish figure. I was going to chalk this up to unrealistic body image propaganda coming from the media, but then I got a look at his disproportionately large ass. Dolly is kneeling, but Jeffy appears to be able to just about put his feet and his butt on the ground simultaneously. It almost looks like he’s wearing the bottom half of a fat suit, or, perhaps more realistically, like he was assembled from various mismatched parts.

(I wrote that last sentence intending to mean that this particular drawing of Jeffy might have been assembled from bits of other drawings, obviously, but I do admit that the idea of the middle Keane boy actually being an unnaturally reanimated collection of corpse parts robbed from the local morgue is deeply pleasing to me.)

Zits, 7/7/08

I like the way Connie appears to be leaning as far away from Jeremy as she can get and still stay in the frame in panel three. It’s like she’s suddenly been forced to visualize her teenage son getting “hands-on learning” from Mrs. Graworski, his biology teacher, and her skull is involuntarily attempting to flee from the source of the offending image.

Pluggers, 7/7/08

Pluggers so enjoy rubbing their carnivorous habits in the face of tree-hugging hippies that they’re willing to pretend to believe in evolution to make their point.

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Slylock Fox, 7/6/08

Never mind Count Weirdly’s unnecessarily complex plastic-ice-cube-based alibi for his rather pedestrian Best Buy theft. How could the callous Count have left his menagerie of beasties alone without fresh food and water during his long trip? Whatever food the fish and the vulture were left with has been reduced to mere bones, and the hairy thing in the cage appears to just be urinating all over the floor. I don’t even want to think about how long it’s been since the brain in the jar has been watered. Perhaps Weirdly’s pointless computer crime was just an elaborate, roundabout way to get Slylock and Max to come and feed his pets, or possibly be eaten by them.

I love the aging hippie in the Six Differences. Perhaps he’s taking his grandson on a tour of America’s diners, his aging psychedelic van still blaring “Freedom Rock” out of the 8-track player as they roam our nation’s byways.

For Better Or For Worse, 7/6/08

Grandma Marion is learning the sad truth about the comics afterlife: despite the fact that you no doubt remember yourself as the ravishing young bride who actually wore the dress that you’re ectoplasmically helping to mend, you instead only get to come back as aged and potato-nosed. You’re also wearing an apron, because even in the Great Beyond, you’re expected to cook.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/6/08

The muscle-flexing, mustachioed cop in the next-to-last panel seriously led me to believe that this was the set-up for some kind of gay erotica. Since it involves the cast of Funky Winkerbean, it would be part of an extremely specific genre known as “mope porn.”

Mary Worth, 7/6/08

Speaking of mope porn … wow, Dr. Jeff has sure reached some kind of horrifying nadir of self-abasement. Will every man who lusts after Mary’s sensibly clad bod have his will broken before he can be truly worthy of her love? Aldo’s rough wooing was action of a sort, and though it led to his humiliation and horrible death, at least he didn’t spend his time slouching around the house drunkenly thought-ballooning at her picture.

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/6/08

“Clam down” is going to be my new all-purpose reaction to people who sound like crazy men. If they are actually crazy, it’ll freak the hell out of them. “CLAM DOWN, MAN! CLAM DOWN! OYSTER! CLAM CLAM! BIVALVE!”