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No, it’s not my birthday — that’s not for another week. It’s the blog’s birthday. Well, technically, that’s not till Monday, but I’m too excited to wait!

Since I made my first post to this blog on July 11, 2004, my readership has gone from a few friends to thousands of people all over the world. I’m averaging around 2,600 unique visitors a day, with around 1,300 of those being repeat visitors. And one of the hallmarks of my success in drawing people to the site has been the very active community of posters in the comments section.

However, I’ve been thinking for some time that this community has been formed almost in spite of the structure of the site, not because of it. After all, the comments section of each post makes it hard to tell what comment exactly you’re responding too, and as new posts push old ones further down the main page of the site, conversations that should keep on rolling end prematurely. And sometimes the conversation wanders so far afield that comments that actually relate to the post to which they’re attached get lost.

To solve all of these problems, today I am unleashing … The Comics Curmudgeon Community Forum!

https://joshreads.com/forum/index.php

Here you can chat in a number of forums that I’ve arbitrarily organized by topic. As of this moment, all the forums are empty; within each forum, registered users can create any number of topics, which are essentially threads of conversation. You can reply to a post in an existing topic as well, of course.

Anyone can read posts, but in order to create new posts or new topics, you’ll have to register, which I hope you find to be a relatively painless procedure. Just click on “Register” link in the top right of the screen. You’ll need to give a working e-mail address to sign up; this is just to ensure that you are a real person and not a spambot. I will never, ever give your e-mail addresses to anyone else. Oh, and because I have only a limited amount of server space, posts are automatically taken off the board after 90 days.

Anyway, most everything should be pretty self-explanatory. I am totally new to this forum software — it comes for free from my Webhost, but I’ve never played with it before today — but I think most things should be pretty self-explanatory. Of course, if you have any troubles, you can always e-mail me and I’ll try to help you as soon as I can.

I hope you enjoy this forum and that it makes it easier for the Comics Curmudgeon community to have fun together! Of course, the comments section for each post will still be there for you, though I imagine that those comments will be more focused on the individual posts from now on. (Not that I’m stopping you from posting anything that isn’t spam, of course.) So have fun in the forums, and don’t forget about me out here on the front page — I’ll still be posting tasty comics commentary for your amusement.

(And confidential to daChipster — I know you sent me your detective story; I thought I had saved it to disk, but apparently I did not. Can you resend? Sorry!)

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Zits, 7/8/05

You know, a few months ago, Jeremy said he was going to grow his hair out for the summer. As near as I can tell, he’s actually doing it. I mean, obviously I know he’s not a “real” person, but he’s being drawn with shaggier hair.

Really, that’s it. That’s my observation for the day. I think it’s interesting when a comic strip acknowledges change, no matter how slight.

You should be careful, though, Jeremy. I tried growing my hair out once, and that’s when this happened.

Anyway, I also have an entry for the “Does the writer of this comic read this blog?” file. From today’s Curtis:

Remember, if you can’t run for higher ground, it helps if you have a friendly dog to drag you there. Higher ground will also be helpfully labeled as such.

Now that I think about it, based on my theory that the creator of Curtis is a 75-year-old white man, I suppose he’s more likely to read Mark Trail than my blog.

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Mary Worth, 7/7/05

I’m beginning to think we’ve all treated Rita a little harshly. I mean, sure, she’s a belligerent, foul-mouthed drunk, but she’s got good reason to be: her daughter’s dead and she’s been kicked out of her apartment and forced to beg for help from someone she barely knows.

Mary Worth, on the other hand, is crazy. I mean, if I were in Rita’s shoes and Mary suddenly pulled this swan routine on me, I’d be all like, “Damn, girl, my life is f’ed up, but you are wack. Go on with your crazy-ass swan-having self.” I like the way that Mary is framed by the inky blackness of … well, whatever it is she’s standing in front of (is that the shadow of the door?) and surrounded by a glowing aura of widowish piety. And are those porcelain swans, or plastic, or … I mean, does she play with them in the bathtub or something? I’m getting more creeped out with each passing moment.

Do you suppose Dr. Jeff’s met the swans? I think I’d like to see the strip where he does, because I’d like to see him cry.