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It is Friday: the day of the week when I showcase the top comment that were posted on my website. Here is my choice for this week!

“The relative superiority the Smifs are claiming is actually unrelated to their choice of candidate; the Smifs are just more adept at operating the Voting Churn.” –Violet

In my comment of the week posts, I also showcase other comments that were good and rank as runners up. Here is this list!

“‘What inspired this walk through the park, Truck?’ ‘You’re prettier than the fall colors. And also, I’m incredibly cheap. Now, sit down on this bench and we can share a couple of Tic Tacs I found in my pocket.’” –BigTed

“Gather ’round the fatscreen TV, everybody.” –nescio

“It’s OK, Beetle! Those guys have numbers in the 80s! They’re just oversized tight ends playing out of position!” –matt w

“Sure, cats climb everywhere, but we are meant to believe that that lumpy boxer somehow made it onto the table by himself? They put him there. No, Dr. Ed, the vet, put him there! While Estelle and Ed get all romantic about how they compromised at their no frills wedding, the lumpy boxer is going to fall off that table and get hurt. ‘Sorry, honey, I have to leave. It’s an emergency! I’ll be taking him to the office. Don’t wait up!’” –Joe Momma

“I think that caption is the closest thing to an artist finishing a strip with ‘Wait … why’d I draw this?’ I’ve ever seen.” –Victor Von

“The first time the cats and dog went ‘meow woof meow,’ everyone laughed. The fifth time elicited a chuckle. The tenth repetition was met with silence, the twenty-fifth with fear, and at the fiftieth ‘meow woof meow’ the party-goers fled in open terror, leaving Estelle and Ed alone with their pets. Their masters. Their gods.” –Voshkod

“It’s funny, because you would think that a young Zoomer [googles quickly] ‘generation alpha’ teen would be more worried about global warming than a new ice age? Maybe she’s actually quite optimistic about our society’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or maybe ice ages are the subject of the hot new Y.A. novels [googles again] ‘Tiktok dances’? No wait … that can’t be right …” –pugfuggly

“I refuse to believe anyone in Hootin’ Holler votes any differently from anyone else. They all open the ballot paper, and then remember that they’re illiterate.” –Schroduck

“Almost [gulp] forty years ago, a philosophy instructor told the class about riding the elevator with one of his professors on a wet, windy, stormy day. ‘A good day to read Schopenhauer, don’t you think?’ the professor asked, about the other famed German crank/philosopher, known for his commitment to humanity’s racial suicide. Any day in Dustin is a good day to read Schopenhauer, is what I’m saying, Meg can drag out On The Freedom of the Will, or they can all die in a fire, it’s all good.” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Perhaps Dolly is unfamiliar with this process, having had her hair in a ponytail that has never been unbound for as long as she can remember. Every strand glued so tightly into place her her eyebrows keep trying to make a run for it. Not even able to sleep on her back. Thel has never regretted choosing that good old fashioned Johnson’s Baby Shamglue.” –made of wince

“The Vikings still live in a world steeped in non-monotheistic paganism, so it’s not outside the norm for them to stumble upon the uncanny, the fantastic, and the unexpected. Rushing a well fortified castle is routine, and the curses of the priests and their chivalric knights about the future of their souls is nothing but hot air. But oddities like this are to be approached with caution, respect, and foreboding.” –Philip

“Apart from this being a dated throwback to the time when the wife was expected to have no income of her own and therefore was entirely dependent on her husband for everything, even personal luxuries, aren’t the Wilsons retired? Technically Social Security paid for that hat.” –TheDiva

“Hagar is oddly curious about an avant-garde production of Plato’s allegory of the cave put on by medieval furries. Not exactly his cup of tea, Lucky Eddie much prefers the French enlightenment and their belief in the power of reason.” –Hibbleton

“There’s character growth and then there’s being expected to believe that someone else is lazing about in bed while Beetle is up and about, and that’s a step too far.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I’m enjoying how, in the midst of nekkid Lion People reveling in the firelight like Maenads, Flash is leading Dale in a sedate foxtrot like they’re at the Yale Prom.” –Ukulele Ike

“Zero will have plenty to gloat about when Rocky finds himself in an unexpected gang food fight and needs such food sources as raw milk fresh from the cow to gain the tactical advantage.” –InvasionOfTheZIM

“Henry’s smile fades as he realizes Dennis just lumped him in with a bunch of equally milquetoast middle aged fathers who ache for the confirmation of an impersonal coffee mug bought at a flea market for a quarter. Existentially menacing.” –Edison Carter

“I do appreciate that even though it’s right in their field of vision, Estelle still takes the time to inform everyone that this is ‘the lunch spread.’ After all, people who are unfamiliar with Mary’s cooking need to be reassured that no, this is not Libby’s litter box on the table.” –2+2=7

“Actually, a Norseman would not refer to himself as a Viking, which is an insult, like calling someone a pirate. Unless Hamlet is like a rapper reappropriating the N-word, which is more interesting than whatever Hagar the Horrible is doing.” –Ettorre

“You may say I’m the best dad/ But I’m not the only one/ I hope some day you’ll join us/ And you’ll learn it’s not that fun” –Rosco

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Intelligent Life, 11/8/24

I can’t believe I’m saying this about Intelligent Life, a comic strip that’s usually about unpleasant bug-eyed people saying fandom words at each other, but today’s strip is actually based on fairly complex semiotic play. Rather than simply having a conversation, Skippy, and, uh, the other guy are talking about the sort of conversation they expect to have, while simultaneously undermining those expectations. Skippy’s reply being put in quote marks, indicating we’re at least one layer of metanarrative deep here, is a particularly effective device.

Hagar the Horrible, 11/8/24

Speaking of narrative, if they had put an eggheaded intellectual like me in charge of today’s Hagar the Horrible, it would’ve been about how the canonically illiterate Hagar believes that his people’s lore should be preserved via their ancient oral tradition of poetry, and is horrified to see Hamlet reading it out of some book. But you could also do a joke about how he’s afraid of spiders, I guess. I mean, why not, if you want to. I don’t like spiders either, for the record.

Mary Worth, 11/8/24

Incredible visual storytelling here: in panel two, we discover that this whole time Wilbur was standing just in front of these ladies, ready to start manically ranting about how great Mary and her food are, certainly better than the sad Lean Cuisine meals he microwaves every night and baptizes with his tears — but only the sudden pullback of our viewpoint reveals his face, in a real jump scare.

Dennis the Menace, 11/8/24

Wait, doesn’t the “world’s best dad” formulation imply that there aren’t any more like him? Does … does Dennis not know that other people have dads, or what?

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Flash Gordon, 11/7/24

The new-ish iteration of Flash Gordon got a shout-out from Uncle Lumpy a few weeks ago, but I’m here to give it my full-time blogger shoutout! The art is great, and the writing is very fun and captures the fast-paced cliff-hanger-y-ness of old movie serials. There hasn’t been too much to make fun of, but I’m going to start slipping it into the rotation here, I think. Anyway, today there are two important developments: we meet the King of the Lion Men and learn that his crown appears to be made from a wildebeest skull (dark!), and once again have the timeless truth affirmed that any sequential art whose storyline would support it at all eventually trends towards erotic furry stuff.

Beetle Bailey, 11/7/24

There’s been a little bit of an attempt in Beetle Bailey of late to upgrade Zero’s character from “dumb farm boy” to “farm boy with certain legitimate skills and his own point of view,” and today seems to be a big step in that direction. Frankly, I would like to see more depth added to all of this strip’s one-note characters. Lt. Fuzz isn’t just an annoying bureaucratic kiss-up: he’s trying to drag Camp Swampy’s administration into the 21st century while showing respect for the current leadership! Cosmo isn’t just a scam artist looking out for number 1: he represents the sort of individual ingenuity that’s always existed in supposedly regimented structures like the military! And Rocky was … in a gang, I guess? Or is currently in a gang? And gangs represent an alternative form of belonging and identity for those living in economically and socially marginal areas that have been more or less abandoned by the state? That’s what I assume he and Zero were talking about immediately before this strip started, and I frankly would’ve liked to have seen it.

Six Chix, 11/7/24

Folks, have you seen Conclave yet? It’s a banger! Everyone’s got Conclave fever! And by everybody I mean at least me and the Thursday Chik. That’s assuming the movie was the inspiration for this strip, that is, which doesn’t make a ton of sense but makes as much sense as anything else, I guess. Anyway! Go see Conclave today!