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Those of you who read Wonkette have probably already figured out the secret engagement I hinted at the other day. Yes, I am the BLOGGER OF THE YEAR! Um, as selected by The Week magazine‘s Opinion Awards. (Sadly, if you click on the “Opinion Awards” link on that page, you’ll be taken to last year’s winners, which are entirely me free.) Technically, since they’re all political and stuff over there, it’s mostly from my political cartoon stuff at Wonkette, but we all know that my work on Mary Worth is second to none in the blogosphere.

Look, here I am giving a half-assed acceptance speech!

(Photo thanks to Liz Gorman, Girl Reporter.)

Alex Pareene, Wonkette’s main editor, was also there, and wrote a very funny write-up of the event. I found the whole thing very surreal, as I don’t go to these things very often, by which I mean ever. But the booze and the food, paid for by Chevron and Philip Morris (I’m sorry, the “Altria Group”) were great. The only thing I have to add to Alex’s take is that Chip Bok (who won the best cartoonist award) and his wife are awesomely nice people who rescued me when I was sitting all lonely by myself at the pre-banquet cocktail hour, and Tom Toles, who I didn’t get to talk to quite as much, is very charming too. In fact, all cartoonists that I have had any contact with are uniformly great. So this award’s for you, guys! Except in the sense that it’s actually for me.

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Mark Trail, 3/28/07

OK, yesterday’s zany talking rug was obviously just the lead-in to the full-on peyote-drenched nightmare that is … this. Sometimes people say things in the comments before I read a strip and I think, “Oh, they’re exaggerating” but … that potato in the first panel is talking. It. Is. Talking. It … JESUS AND SHE’S GOING TO PUT A KNIFE RIGHT THROUGH IT! Panel two is obviously a “world as perceived by Cherry’s drug-addled mind” view: the reason her skull is so unnaturally bulbous is because it’s full of people who talk and argue without her opening her mouth; the look of sheer panic and disgust on her face indicates that she’s ready to crack her own head open just to MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP FOR GOD’S SAKE MAKE IT STOP. The rather pedestrian scene of a giant bear ratiocinating in the final panel is prosaic and calming by comparison to the horror that came before.

Judge Parker, 3/28/07

Comprende? Comprende? OK, seriously, now they’re just fucking with us. Someone has ordered the dialogue in Judge Parker to be translated into “foreign.”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 3/28/07

NOTE TO ALL PERSONS NOT LIVING IN YEARS PREVIOUS TO 1965: When your spouse or partner says, “I’m so sick of doing chore X,” the correct answer is, “I’ll do chore X tonight.” OH YEAH!

I can particularly see why Catastra might be so tired of doing dishes, since it seems that this family of three has managed to dirty dozens of them in the course of a single meal.

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Funky Winkerbean, 3/27/07

Man, just when I thought Funky Winkerbean couldn’t dip any further into emotional turmoil and human anguish, I think we’re about to see Coach Dude Whose Name I Forget ask his childhood bullying victim to inseminate his wife. Which will be more awesome, this or the FBOFW teen sex storyline? Only queasy, uncomfortable time will tell!

Mark Trail, 3/27/07

As a long-time fan of Mark Trail, I totally accept things like giant talking skunks without a bit of hesitation. But I’m having trouble with the giant talking rug in the third panel here. Which appears to be on the wall for some reason. Or is it perched on Mark’s shoulder? Or are Mark and Cherry actually standing on the wall, their bodies held parallel to the ground by some strange force, like Lionel Richie in the damn “Dancing on the Ceiling” video? Is that what’s going on here?