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At long last, the wait is over: GAIL MARTIN MERCH IS HERE!

This fab design from faithful reader Dingo is available on a crapload of products over at CafePress. And if you don’t see the product you want on that list, just let me know and I’ll make one more to your liking.

Of course, all your old favorites are still available at my CafePress store. Faithful reader Jason sent me this adorable pic of him wearing his More Information About Licorice shirt:

“More information about literacy can be found by reading books to children,” he notes.

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Apartment 3-G, 7/16/07

On Saturday, Eric Mills announced that he had picked up “something priceless” from the Orient. Today we learn what that priceless item is: his brother’s mouldering corpse. Actually, if he found it on the cold, dry Tibetan plateau, it may in fact be freeze-dried rather than mouldering, but either way it’s technically “priceless” because of course nobody would pay good money for it. (This also meant that he didn’t have to declare it on his customs form upon his return to the States.)

This shocking fact has sent his sister-in-law into a Level Four Swoon, though the segue from “missing” to “prayed his body would be recovered” seems to have skipped over a vital point. Presumably once a death certificate is on file, their illicit love affair can be upgraded from actual adultery to merely kind of icky, and Eric can dispense with his Margo-dating pretense. That should get ugly fast.

Gil Thorp, 7/16/07

There are few things in this world more disturbing than panel two of today’s Gil Thorp. I mean, sure, we all like to see ol’ pearl-earring-wearing Heat-Miser-lookalike Coach Kaz give a drunken lout what for by punching him right in the teeth, and the fact that his girlfriend responded to his act of lightning-fast violence with a look that says “Do me right here in the middle of CAFE, I beg of you” is only to be expected. But where the hell is the rest of Kaz’s arm? As disturbing as the thought that his fist might have gone right through the Lout’s teeth and headed back towards the uvula is, at the angles we’re seeing, it just doesn’t seem possible that Kaz’s fist isn’t protruding out the back of the drunken fellow’s head. My theory is that the inside of this bottle-wielding field’s body is some kind of dimensional anomaly: he’s literally bigger on the inside than on the outside. This bizarre evolutionary adaptation presumably allows him to ingest a greater volume of alcohol than a normal human could contain without bursting open.

Archie, 7/16/07

Today the Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000 has actually manage to cobble together a gag that, if not “funny” per se, at least makes a vague sort of sense and is based on the Archie gang’s (admittedly broad) established characterizations. However, we do get an interesting indication that the AJGLU 3000 is not connected to the Internet. Sure, bizarre fake domain names are in fact used as the names of retail establishments in real life — my favorite is the newsstand at the Oakland airport called WWW.NEWS.OAKLAND — but Eat.com is actually the homepage for for Ragú®, currently featuring some “Soccer Mom Shortcuts.” (“Today’s tip: Your kids don’t have what you’d call ‘discriminating palates,’ so don’t feel bad about feeding them mediocre spaghetti sauce out of a jar.”) Presumably the domain was reserved by some smartie in the IT department of whatever multinational corporation owned the rights to the Ragú® brand in 1998; the current owner, Unilever, has deep Dutch pockets and teams of lawyers, so look out, AJGLU 3000, is what I’m saying.

(Note to outraged soccer moms everywhere: I feed myself mediocre spaghetti sauce out of a jar, and I don’t have kids who I have to shuttle to soccer practice, or even a job that requires me to leave the house, so please do not take offense at the above.)

For Better Or For Worse, 7/16/07

Coming this summer, to theaters from Vancouver to Halifax:

When does their house … become your home?

When does accommodation … become self-abnegation?

When does a doormat … say enough is enough?

When does murder … become emotional self-defense?

Will any jury convict her?

All these questions and more will be answered in the thinking person’s summer blockbuster: Oedipus Wrecks: The Housening!

Gasoline Alley, 7/16/07

Driven to madness by the incessant basketball-dribbling of a bunch of young African-American fellows, Slim has decided to destroy the public court on which their noisy pastime is played by simulating a meteor strike. Dear God, I wish I had a made up a single word in that previous sentence.

Family Circus, 7/16/07

“So you see, the Great Leader used his Third Sight to recognize the sympathetic vibrations between us during Morning Inspection at the Compound. Three weeks later, we were joined in the eyes of the Unknowable God in the Sacred Dell, along with three hundred other people. The end. Now go do your homework.”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 7/16/07

Hey, everybody! Today’s TDIET was submitted by “Allison Everett,” who’s really faithful reader Allie Cat! “Just to give you some backstory,” she says, “I log a lot of phone time with my work; my colleagues and I all get voicecalls (although we call them ‘voice mails’) like this daily and they’re irritating (and I haven’t learned how to rewind on my current system, so that makes me an idiot in my own right, but we won’t go there). Also, I don’t currently own a black sweater vest, but it’s on my list for fall fashion must-haves.”

Beetle Bailey, 7/16/07

Beetle and Killer are not putting their IED training to use in the ways that their superior officers might have hoped.

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Hey, kids! Are you ready for the comment of the week!? You bet you are!

“Margo will be in for a surprise if she thinks that this blonde Sally Field character is going to just crumple before her in the manner of her usual victims. Look at the bewildered shock on her face there. ‘But … she’s pointing her finger at me! I don’t understand this at all! Can she do that??'” –Joe Bftsplk

And how ’bout some runners-up? You know it!

About Mary Worth: “It must be a challenge to have to think of the dullest possible conclusion to every series of events you introduce.” –Citric

“That’s some high-falutin’ language wasted on describing big trees, when meanwhile Mark talks like a slow, angry fifth grader Monday through Saturday.” –King Folderol

“Far above some hills or waters/ Proudly stands on high/ An institute of higher learning/ With buildings named for guys/ Local U, Local U/ Ever loyal we will remain/ And sing peans to our Alma Mater/ The U without a name. Go Fightin’ Vague Shapes! Yay!” –Dr. Mad

“What is Slick Smitty’s deal? He never really moves beyond the children’s prank stage of criminal behavior, and he antagonizes giant, man-sized animals that could effortlessly disembowel and devour him. I think he must be very depressed.” –Christopher

“If Crankshaft thinks that poetry is boring, he should try reading the poetry in The New Yorker. Of course, since Crankshaft is small town folk, the only New Yorker he knows is the kind he tries to hit with his bus.” –Steve S

“THAT IS NOT KARAOKE GET YOUR DEFINITIONS FROM THE DICTIONARY NOT FREE ASSOCIATION” –concrete_d

“With all that ‘girl’ business, Eva is clearly auditioning for the part of ‘Overly And Unnecessarily Sassy Friend Who Dispenses “Real” Advice Because She Has Family Issues And May Have Been Date Raped By That College Guy That One Time’ in She Said No, But He Said Yes. She’s already got the perm for it; all she needs now is a good pair of acid washed jeans and a flannel shirt.” –kat

“Dinner at a lousy restaurant, with no chance at sex? Sounds like a date to me, Dolly!” –andreavis

“Probably the most amazing thing about today’s strip is the box in the upper left corner which reads ‘Several Days Later…’ Considering the glacial pace at which things usually unfold in the MaryVerse, I can only guess that there must have been a fire at the syndicate office, and about six years’ worth of MW strips were destroyed.” –AhClem

“Obviously, Dr. Drew Cory, MD, has to put on his Elvis wig to call up women and make dates. Twenty years of intense therapy have done nothing about this fetish.” –Islamorada Girl

“Careful, you’ll spoil me by taking me to ‘Cafe.’ I hear it got four stars from Eponymous Eating Establishment Weekly.” –DaveyK

“The thing that most offends my sensibilities about this Crankshaft is neither the punning, nor the smirks, nor the deathly pallor, but rather the fact that the writer couldn’t be arsed to set up his punchline with anything remotely interesting. I mean, ‘look at the cows’? That’s it? You might as well just substitute the entire first panel with a placard that reads ‘PUN ABOUT COWS TO FOLLOW IN SECOND PANEL.'” –Darth Paradox

“I’m trying not to picture the second panel as Hekkie now living with his white-haired mother, whose social security check has supplemented his wife’s meager earnings as back-alley notary public. ‘Mother! Your incontinence is exceeded only by your lack of laundry skills!’ Wait. I guess I have pictured it.” –AeroSquid

Also in the comment department was a hilarious Zagat takeoff by faithful reader t.a.m.s.y., but I was afraid the quote marks wouldn’t really reproduce right if I put it here, and they were the key to the joke; fortunately, he went the extra mile to reproduce it in graphic form.

And, of course, the ongoing comment wackiness on this thread and others on Gail Martin’s life and times collectively deserve some kind of lifetime achievement awards. There’s even a Gail Martin wiki!

Finally, we must thank our advertisers, because that’s how Gail would want it:

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