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OK, not quite 20 years, as I didn’t start picking a comment of the week until April 2005, and didn’t start doing weekly roundups until September 2006, but still: this storied tradition continues as usual, today, and every week, forever:

“A leather wearing lady and an elongated sandwich? That’s a dom/sub relationship.” –Philip

Your runners up also carry the torch of all who came before them!

“Nothing like barging in on your dad while he’s on his laptop and thinks you’re 2000 miles away. Dawn’s next line: ‘So, I see you’re still into fish porn.’” –Peanut Gallery

“Think of all the majestic views we could have been enjoying of historic Bridgeport, Waterbury, and the Groton Submarine Works.” –Ukulele Ike

“Walt pretty much had to go through God for this damage claim. Whoever he insured his house through originally would have died nearly a hundred years ago.” –jroggs

“So Slylock rounded up the suspects and they just happened to be called Tony and Frederico? If you thought Slylock’s anti-amphibian racial profiling was bad, just wait until you hear what the Italian-American Civil Rights League has to say.” –Schroduck

“Extra wrinkle in the case is the fact that the alleged ‘frog’ has a belly button, a smoking gun for placental mammalian lineage. I sense unacknowledged Count Weirdly offspring.” –Artist formerly known as Ben

“Giving the sandwich eyes makes things even more complicated. Is this some kind of lab experiment where a sandwich has become a sentient being? Is the bread alive and the sandwich fillings are inanimate? Or does placing the meat and cheese into the bread give it life? This is a lot to stomach.” –Old School Allie Cat

“The best detail of Six Chix today is that our inamorata was already pretty deep into her make-out session with a giant sandwich before she found out it could speak. What did she think before this point? That the sandwich was merely large and inanimate? That it was animate but ultimately mute? Presumably she was angling towards eating the sandwich; has this revelation changed her plans at all?” –BananaSam

“Now is it possible, just possible, that Dawn’s mother was grooming her to inherit her international crime syndicate, and sent her back when she failed some unspoken test? That’s probably too exciting for Mary Worth, but it did happen in The Phantom, so it can’t be that exciting.” –Navigator

“You think that’s uncomfortable? Just look at my body! I have the ribcage of an obese pigeon! My arm isn’t even connected to my torso! For this hat to stay on I must be a conehead!!” –pugfuggly

“Jeffy is going to be punished severely for referencing ‘horses’ where he could have used ‘Jesus.’” –nescio

“Judging from the shovel, my guess is Cherry’s next line will be: ‘Only you can prevent forest fires!’ These will also be her last words.” –Pozzo

“The bear speaks fluent ursine as well, Cherry. So when you tell him to leave, he’s just going to say ‘no.’” –cheech wizard

“Poor Greta. Braces aren’t going to fix the generations of forced inbreeding that resulted in the misery you live through every day. Look at the bright side though. If you were human, you’d be royalty.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Rex Morgan M.D. is a ‘Schlubs Paradise’ where a middle-aged man’s doughy and uninteresting charms can reign supreme in all aspects of life. I’ve always said Wilbur is in the wrong comic. He should come over to Rex’s strip where he can live like a king! A sweaty, mediocre king!” –2+2=7

“‘Look, Parker, people get bullied for all sorts of…’ ‘Shut up, old man, before I jam an IV into your eye.’ ‘Sorry, Parker.’ ‘Man, I feel better already. Maybe bullying is for me!’ Feeling down, depressed, hospitalized? Is bullying for you? Ask your doctor, unless your doctor is Rex Morgan. Then ask a different doctor. Side effects of bullying may include high self-esteem, an increased peer group, and bruised knuckles. Bullying. It’s for everyone!” –Voshkod

“Pluggers live in hot climates and dress appropriately? I’m not feeling this one.” –matt w

“This is Milford! We have no use for your Lord and your Roy Rogers’ manager cosplay! Hell, most of the kids think you’re wearing the Arby’s logo. Is that how you want to be remembered? As the guy in the Arby’s hat?” –KMD

“I wonder what poor actor Frank Nelson who died 38 years ago could possibly have done to be in a Hell where he has to be semi-regularly summoned from the grave to appear in a Gasoline Alley comic strip? Of course, that makes me wonder what I did to wind up in this reality where Gasoline Alley continues to be published. Something so horrible, I must have blocked it from my conscious mind.” –Old Man Shadow

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Gil Thorp, 7/12/24

The beloved Gil Thorp bonfire tradition has been cancelled forever due to a nationwide wood shortage, which means we must console ourselves with a somewhat more recent and less beloved tradition, the Coach of the Year awards banquet (or “COTY,” as insiders call it). Two years ago Gil won it, and last year he won it again. This year the “most improved” award has gone to Gil’s former nemesis/current assistant, so all signs point to our hero taking the COTY home for a third year in a row. I think it’s nice that they’re letting him give it to himself this year.

Gasoline Alley, 7/12/24

I forgot to mention, there’s a new cute cat in Gasoline Alley that Gertie found and brought to Walt! You can see he’s already getting adjusted to his role in this strip (coquetteishly mugging to the reader as the human characters make extremely uninteristing wordplay at one another).

Marvin, 7/12/24

Sorry my intrusive thoughts about toilets yesterday got me distracted from the important thing here, which is that Marvin is doing a very depressing series of strips where dogs talk about all the things they’ve done wrong in their lives and can’t stop thinking about.

Shoe, 7/12/24

Do birds eat cicadas? Well, according to a post called “Circada Bird Feast Protocol” on the friendtocicadas dot org blog, which seems like an extremely reputable source, yes! So, sadly, this conversation is actually about how this boring little town will soon be beset by famine.

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Folks, I want you to cast your minds back to the long-forgotten year 2004. A young man not yet 30 had decided to try out this “blogging” thing that seemed to be getting so much attention those days, focusing on his favorite under-appreciated art form, the newspaper comic strips. He started on July 11th of that year with a post about Non Sequitur, a strip that he would soon bore of. The next day, however? The next day … was pure gold.

Mary Worth, 7/12/2004

That’s right: I, your faithful comics curmudgeon, have been talking about Wilbur Weston’s sex life since 2004. As is only meet and proper, for this momentous occasion, I have decided to bring back my beloved CafePress store and urge you to purchase a t-shirt or other item that shares this fact and this message with the whole world!

Anyway! Twenty years is a long time to be doing anything — so long that it kind of snuck up on me and I didn’t put together an elaborate series of anniversaposts like I did in 2014 — but I still love the comics, still love doing the blog, and still love all of you. Big thanks to Uncle Lumpy for being a great fill-in, and to you all for being faithful and funny readers and commenters, whether you started reading yesterday or in 2004! Your reward: You get to read this blog again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and (assuming the comics and the internet still exist and the sun has not expanded to a red giant to swallow the earth) so forth, indefinitely.

And finally, since I must always be closing: if you think that 20 years of looking at ads on this website is enough and want an elegant, ad-free experience, perhaps I can interest you in a subscription, either to a no-ads version of the site or an ad-free email version of each post delivered to your inbox each morning? Just a thought! No worries if not, no paywall will ever descend to block access to this important cultural artifact. Normal comics jokes resume tomorrow! But until then, feel free to sound off in the comments about how this blog has changed your life.