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Greetings, readers! You may be waiting for this week’s comments of the week. Well, here’s #1!

“A plugger knows they’re pregnant when a baby falls out of their hoo-hoo.” –Perky Bird

And the runners up! Very amusing!

“Look at Drew’s face! The last time I saw an expression like that was in the mirror the night before my colonoscopy.” –Poteet

“Frankly, I love Dad’s expression in Marvin. It says, ‘I’d respond, but it’s all I can do to hold up this coffee cup. I’d kill myself, but that sounds like work.'” –Bunnë, Official Comic Execrator

“It was only a matter of time before the bestiality started [in Momma]. I only hope this means they’ve run out of incest jokes.” –Gold-Digging Nanny

“The new [Gil Thorp] artist knows even less about sports than the old one, evidently. The girls are playing with what looks like a medicine ball, both teams are in home uniforms, and the jerseys have no numbers whatsoever. Must make calling fouls a real crapshoot. ‘You, gobsmacked-looking blond girl. Intentional awkwardness!'” –GotFuzzy

“I also like the way Steve’s mom in Judge Parker just cuts to the chase and asks if it could be a bomb. I guess when you’re old and dying of cancer, you have no time to wait through a typically glacial JP plot development.” –Harold, Christian Single of the Jungle Patrol

“Today’s Gil Thorp is much like a bizzare, drunken first date in that I have no idea what happened or why, and it finished in the bedroom.” –Hasty Penguin

“The great thing about having ‘Laffs’ in your book’s title is that you are legally exempt from having to provide any actual laughs.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘Lost dog’ is just plugger code for runaway sex slave. Everyone knows that.” –alamo

“A team of spelunkers went in in an attempt to diagram Mary’s sentence — never to return.” –Pozzo

“I, too, am happy that Funky the character will now be shown as being an evil industrialist. We need to get some enjoyment out of this strip, and at this stage I’m willing to settle for rooting for the cancer.” –Mac

“After Alan does drugs with his friend ‘Jones,’ he’s going drinking with his buddies ‘Miller’ and ‘Busch.’ Then he’s going to meet up with a prostitute named ‘Gonorrhea Hooker.'” –Allie Cat

“Damn, now Foob owns even more of my brain cells. Luckily, I can kill them by drinking.” –Les

“I love how the guys in the plane automatically assume that Mark isn’t just assaulting these two people. Obviously Brice is the one with facial hair, so he must deserve whatever ass-kicking he’s getting from Mark Trail.” –Lindsey ^_^

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Gil Thorp, 2/25/08

Every once in a while Gil Thorp is seized by some sort of conviction that it is read and beloved by teenagers across the land. The reality, of course, is that its audience surely consists mostly of ironic twenty- and thirtysomething hipsters, which is why new artist Frank Bolle’s decision to draw all the teenage characters as if they were in their twenties and thirties is actually quite clever. But anyway, sometimes the strip feels a need to churn out an afterschool special style Very Special Storyline to educate and enlighten its imaginary high school aged audience. Longtime readers of this blog no doubt remember homeless high school basketball star storyline from a couple of years ago; during the period in the late ’90s and early ’00s when the strip was written by Jerry Jenkins (yes, that Jerry Jenkins), there were also plots involving abortion and a Jewish football player who wouldn’t play on the Sabbath.

Anyway, for some time now the A-Train storyline has been transparently leading up to this shocking revelation: Andrew’s been raising his little siblings alone, for some reason! I’m really looking forward to finding out the why of this, and one can only hope it involves Andrew murdering his parents with an axe. Whatever it is, it still won’t explain why he’s a spit-curled horse-faced egomaniacal jerky jerk.

Herb and Jamaal, 2/25/08

Some might see this bizarre reference to “girly-girl troopers” as more typical Herb and Jamaal nonspecificity, but I believe that instead it’s an attempt to avoid angering the Girl Scouts with any implication that they might be drug dealers. Which, frankly, is a smart move. You do not want to piss off the Girl Scouts. You’re liable to wake up with a bunch of Tagalong crumbs in your bed and a blood-red fleur-de-lys spray-painted across the front of your house.

Mark Trail, 2/25/08

WHAMMO! Another fine fist o’ justice dished out by Mark Trail! And a particularly artful one too, I must say, with his jacket billowing out manfully behind him as beardo Brice goes down in defeat. I am curious, though, about just who these Mark-allies are circling the scene in their Pan Am Clipper flying boat. They’re clearly familiar with his knuckle sandwich work, as that’s how they’ve managed to identify him from their great height. Could it be that Andy and his hastily scrawled note has already managed to reach The Community, and this is the rescue squad? Since it’s been, what, about twenty minutes since Andy fled into the woods, one would have to question why Mark’s rescuers couldn’t have simply walked there.

Apartment 3-G, 2/25/08

Woo-hoo, Jones the Beatnik is back! Ever since his first appearance, Jones has been one of A3G’s greatest supporting characters, not least because his soul patch and super-groovy vest make it easy to distinguish him from other males in the strip. Plus his appearance always presages some kind of binge on Alan’s part — another reason to root for him.

Slylock Fox, 2/25/08

Good lord, it’s another representative of the sexy Cat clan! Although Keesha spells her last name with a “K” and is apparently on the side of good (or at least on the side of victim rather than perpetrator) so perhaps she’s trying to keep her distance from Cassandra and Carla. Also, I’m not sure exactly what kind of life form the “witness” is supposed to be, but he’s clearly evolved extra-long arms and index fingers for more effective snitching.

Marvin, 2/25/08

Five days after it began, the grim death march that is “Belly Laffs” continues. So far, every single one of these priceless gems of humor has boiled down to “You know you’re pregnant when you get fat.” I can’t believe I’m writing this, but: hey, Marvin, I’ve heard that pregnant women also get weird food cravings and have morning sickness and sometimes are constipated! Perhaps you could cover some of that territory?

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Family Circus, 2/24/08

O Sunday Family Circus, why do you insist on the being baffling and totally insane? These snowman scenarios grow increasingly deranged and disturbing as you move clockwise through the strip. “Snowy’s Kindergarden” is forgettable treacle; one might be tempted to gloss over the Symphony Hall entry with equal speed, except that upon closer inspection it appears that our be-headphoned conductor snowbeing may actually be inside the symphony hall? And if so, would there by any more disturbing moment for a professional concert musician than coming into work one day and finding a pile of snow on the floor and a ghastly simulacrum of your conductor grinning dumbly and listening to headphones?

From there, it gets worse. Obviously the melting snowman at the global warming talk is a horrifying nightmare; the way it’s cradling its head, desperately trying to keep it from falling off its rapidly shrinking neck and rolling across the floor, would be poignant if it weren’t so terrifying. And finally, we arrive at … OK, where is that? Does that building in the background have bars on the window? Is that snowman in prison? My God, it’s in prison, isn’t it? And that rolling ball in front of it is … what, exactly? The severed head of a prison snitch? The mind boggles?

If we want good, old-fashioned fun, we need to turn to people who know how to have a good time … pirates!

Panel from the Phantom, 2/24/08

WOO! PIRATE PARTY! Even when it’s about over, you can see they’re having a good time, because they’re still laughing it up! With their pirate antics! WOO! HA HA! Sunday’s strip got all Phantom-fisty and skull-marky after this point, but I just wanted to linger on the moment when the pirates were allowed to have their fun.