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I’m not quite ready to sign off on comics-mocking for the decade yet, but nevertheless, this’ll be your last COTW for a while, so enjoy it! BUT FIRST: enjoy the anticipation of the first Internet Read Aloud of the ’20s, coming your way in only two weeks!

Here’s the Facebook event! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO BE THERE!

Like I said, I’ve got a few more days of comics mocking in me, so please refresh ad-serving joshreads dot com pages constantly for updates, but for now, here’s your comment … of the week!

“Leroy has figured out the truth. The DEA never inspects ‘Tube Socks.’ Month after month, socks come up from Colombia. Month after month, Leroy repackages them and sends them on. Month after month, Leroy is paid well for this and, month after month, he refuses to spend a dime of it to do a damn thing for Loretta. The money just sits there, accruing interest, and Leroy imagines dying first. Loretta at the lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. ‘The remainder of the estate, amounting to $15 million in cash, is left to … the fire. I am directed to burn it all, and I quote, in front of my wife.’ It’ll be so great, Leroy thinks. Just wish I could be there to see it.” –Voshkod

And your very funny runners up!

“‘What’s new in the funeral home business?’ He’s got his reporter’s notebook out, which makes his question legit, so I guess he’s expecting to publish a big scoop in tomorrow’s Treetops Tattler. At least, Brookins/MacNelly didn’t go with an answer of ‘nothing, it’s a dying industry.’” –Just John

“God, look at the shit-eating (sorry) grin on Marvin in the last panel. That is the face of sociopathic malice, right there. ‘Yeah, I gave my mom post-partum depression,’ he’s thinking, ‘Life is good.’” –TheDiva

“Apparently, Lorenzo was a magician who would escape from an alligator. He couldn’t do that now — the animal-rights folks would be all over him, and buying a new alligator every day has gotten super-expensive.” –BigTed

“No one else ever interacts with Harry. I think he’s a ghost that haunts Becky.” –Tom T.

“Okay, look, we all know I make these stupid puns to delay actually making you guys play anything, because whenever you do, it sounds like an owl fucking a capybara, which I realize is a highly specific comparison to make, but hey, the poster’s on the door for a reason.” –els

“I’m not sure how I feel about the comic pointing out its own inability to tell jokes. If Batuik mocks his own comics so we don’t have to, aren’t we all out of a job?” –JJ48

“Sure, shoppers, there is a pissy-faced girl blocking the path and throwing off a hundred-foot zone of ‘don’t-give-a-shit,’ but that plain, black lettering on a white posted board ‘Visit Santa’ sign is inviting, right?” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

“I know this isn’t really a ‘gag a day’ strip, but is there supposed to be a joke in there? I mean, it sure looks like Cayla finds the idea of her husband alone and miserable at Christmas kinda funny, which, yeah, I guess I kinda get.” –pugfuggly

“When you’re an experienced country doctor, you don’t start right off with, ‘Whoa, that’s a hell of a shiner you’ve got there!’ You lead up to it with small talk first.” –Peanut Gallery

“Estelle, Wilbur is not any better to be around when he’s predictable.” –Rosstifer

“If you keep missing Wilbur, maybe you should hire a hit man? I hear they don’t miss.” –ZeroWolf

“Dagwood said no to putting this product on his head. He ended up wearing it anyway and walked away reflecting how the person who gave it to him was right not to accept his rejection. And now multiple people are giving him nigh identical greetings, one telling him how good he looks for wearing it, all smiling and friendly in the midst of what should be frustrating purchasing sprees. Are there any ways to read that other than a mind control cult? Probably, but they rely on the idea that ‘extendo licks’ proved a good idea, so I’m ignoring them.” –pachoo

“That ‘sniff‘ reminds us that for decades pluggers thought fuzzy dice were air fresheners.” –Spunky The Wonder Squid

“So she used Google to find other, more interesting book readings in the area.” –nescio

“Panel two shows a man who is both terrified and getting exactly what he wants simultaneously. Mark secretly always wants a bear attack. You think when he’s talking to Cherry or, god forbid, Rusty, he isn’t praying for a bear to come bounding in? Of course he is! This Himalayan red is a manifestation of Mark’s subconscious, much as the Id Monster is for Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.” –Joe Blevins

“I have bear repellent! Unfortunately I only brought enough for one person. Later bitches! Ha Haw!” –Danielakiiki

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Mark Trail, 12/20/19

Oh my gosh we’re wrapping up this week with a VICIOUS BEAR ATTACK!!!! And, folks, I don’t want to bring anyone down but … it’s clear that literally everyone in this strip is going to be killed by this bear. I mean, look how close they all are to it. Genie’s face is twisted in terror and possibly pain; if that huge claw, just inches from her body, hasn’t already sliced her open, it surely will on the next swipe. Mark, sadly, is just reflexively barking out nature facts; his expert ID of the bear’s species will be the last thing he ever says. Mingma and Dr. Camel are both trapped under the wreckage of this hiking station, and my main question about them is: whose leg is this?

If it’s Dr. Camel’s, it’s horribly twisted in his hip joint, and if it’s Mingma’s, it’s clearly been snapped off entirely. Either way, both men only have seconds left to live. Not-Mingma will be spraying a cloud of bear repellant behind him as he flees into the mountains, leaving a scene of absolute carnage behind him. Presumably the next day or two will serve to wrap everything up, the Sunday strip will be dedicated to bears and their propensity for eating human flesh, and then that’s it: RIP Mark Trail, 1946-2019, it’s been a real one.

Funky Winkerbean, 12/20/19

Meanwhile, Funky Winkerbean is here to show Lillian why her book events are so sparsely attended: instead of writing some piece of shit mystery novel that nobody liked, she should’ve done a graphic novel about her beloved spouse dying of cancer. That really packs ’em in to the book signings, even literally years after the thing’s been published, and, good news: if they don’t get your cultural references, you can just belittle them right there, giving you a big ego boost! (Gotta wonder what sort of interaction with a clueless youth who showed shocking ignorance of the Lone Ranger and its important place in the American pop culture landscape prompted the run of bitter “kemosabe” jokes in this strip, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Pluggers, 12/20/19

I’m genuinely touched by the delicate, almost reverent way this plugger is holding those fuzzy dice as he carries them to their final resting place, presumably a dumpster behind the local Carl’s Jr.

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Mary Worth, 12/19/19

Man, that smile Mary has in panel two? That’s her realizing that she’s finally making headway in this, her most difficult meddle yet. Sure, Estelle’s been unlucky in love — but can she really be cajoled into falling for Wilbur, who didn’t seem like much of a catch even before his recent downward spiral? It would take all of Mary’s powers to achieve these goals, and the sense of satisfaction success would bring would warm her black heart for weeks. “And yet, despite his obsession with his ex-girlfriend, and his obnoxious drunken behavior, you miss him, Estelle? Very interesting. Very improbable. And very gratifying.”

Marvin, 12/19/19

Meanwhile, speaking of terrible smirks, I at first assumed Marvin was being incredibly smug about how his family had failed at Christmas, again. “Eh?” he seems to be saying. “My father has ruined the holidays, and my parents will fight over it for months to come? Eh?” But I think the reference to A Charlie Brown Christmas speaks to a more specifically mercenary malevolence: the horrible baby thinks that if his family takes in a sad, neglected tree, they’ll become universally beloved, just like Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, to which I respond: 75% of Peanuts strips aren’t about Charlie Brown shitting himself, kid.

Blondie, 12/19/19

Hey, Blondie trufans! Can you simply not get enough of such classic Blondie gags as “Dagwood carries a huge pile of boxes so you can’t see his face” and “Dagwood has a freakish, improbable hairstyle, with two bits of hair that were originally intended to be cowlicks now extending from his cranium like antennae?” Have you ever wanted both of these tried-and-true bits combined into one unbeatable punchline? Well, today’s strip is for you, my friends.