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FOLKS! The Internet Read Aloud, America’s #1 Internet themed-show that takes place in Los Angeles but is now on Zoom and is hosted by me will be happening not once but twice between now and the end of the year! First up, the majesty of Thankszooming:

This show will feature a chill afternoon vibe: It’s on Sunday, November 15, at 1 pm Pacific, and features show favorites Patrick Susmilch and Sammy Mowrey, Rifftrax writer Conor Lastowka, and show newcomer Nina Butterfly! Here’s the Zoom link, for future reference, and here’s the Facebook event, if you find that helpful!

Then we slide into December with Zoomukkah!

This show is on Saturday, December 5, at 6 pm Pacific, and features Time Out LA comic to watch Katrina Davis, Jupiter Bardot (who hosts his own internet-themed comedy show, which makes this a superstar teamup), plus show newbies Laurie Bolewitz and Brian Bahe! Here’s the Zoom link, and here’s the Facebook event!

And if you find it helpful to get updates like this straight to your mailbox, you can sign up for the Internet Read Aloud mailing list!

Finally: You may have heard that there is a major and still unresolved U.S. presidential election that we’re in the middle of! Maybe you have been talking/arguing about it on other posts — I hope not! I haven’t read them yet, but that’s not what they’re for! If you feel you simply must talk/argue about the election on this website, I urge you to do so in the comments on this post. I will not be reading them! Good luck and God bless!

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Mark Trail, 11/4/20

Oh snap it’s Kelly Welly, everybody! Real Trail heads remember Kelly, who was sadly absent during the James Allen era, as one of Mark’s greatest foils, always trying to simultaneously steal Mark’s stories and get into his pants (or Bill Ellis’s pants, or the pants of whoever might help her write her next story). My friend Kaycee brought her to life years ago in the unforgettable Mark Trail Theater.

Anyway, while I think new-look Mark Trail has sometimes been a little too aggressive on the “look, we’re different now!” front, in the long run if the strip isn’t going to remain an anachronism, it has to come up with answers to the questions of “What would the Mark Trail characters be like if they lived in the year 2020,” and I think “Kelly Welly is a brash, nature-focused Instagram influencer” is absolutely a correct answer to that question.

Marvin, 11/4/20

You know what’s never going to change, though? Marvin, a comic strip that features babies chatting amicably about what kind shit-innable undergarments they’re wearing, They’re chatting about it now, and they’re going to keep on chatting about it, forever.

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Phantom, 11/3/20

My wife runs a lot of trainings for her job, which have predictably all become virtual trainings over the past six months, and her work sent her a handy little LED ring light to better illuminate her, but her home office is in the living room which gets great natural light and she doesn’t really need it, so it’s been repurposed for my Zoom comedy shows, which I run from my somewhat darker office. But what if we lived in a cave? What if we lived in a cave deep underground, with no natural light at all, but still had to do video calls for exposition purposes? Well, probably we would just get a normal set of lights that you would put in a house, since clearly the whole place is fully wired for electricity, but why not just set up a single theater-quality spotlight and point it directly at your head from like six feet away? The pros (long, moody shadows) surely outweighs the cons (profuse sweating).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 11/3/20

“Oh, absolutely. Turns out caring for a bunch of sick, dying, highly infectious old people is a real drag. Plus that thing I heard on Facebook about doctors getting a bonus payment for every COVID patient was not true at all, and the CDC was extremely rude about it when I tried to invoice them.”

Family Circus, 11/3/20

Billy is so full of joy not because he gives a single shit about democracy, but because his teacher gave him such an incredibly easy assignment. What a dope! He’s gonna tape that thing up and not learn a damn thing, which is just how he likes it.