Mark Trail : Uh-oh, I think I made it mad!

Mark Trail getting attacked by a goose is the sort of thing that can occasionally make me regret retiring this blog.

Beetle Bailey: Try counting sheep.

This is not how you draw a sheep.

This is, in fact, so not how you draw a sheep that I had to come out of semi-comics-blogging-retirement to tell you about it.

The Annotated Family Circus

The short version: I am now blogging at The Annotated Family Circus. I might still blog at The Comics Section occasionally, but at a much lower volume.

For the long version, see the post below.

In which The Comics Section evolves. Or devolves. Or something.

As you may or may not have noticed, depending on how much attention you pay to this silly blog of mine, I haven't been doing the daily Family Circus posts you may or may not have grown accustomed to. Indeed, I haven't been doing any posting at all for the past couple of days. "Why is this?" you may or may not be asking.

Well. As it happens, it actually takes quite a lot of effort to write this blog. That was OK when I was enjoying myself. But lately, keeping the blog up to date has started to feel an awful lot like work. And, frankly, there are other ways I'd like to spend my time and other subjects besides the comics section that I'd like to write about. So I began to give serious consideration to retiring the blog.

But I don't want to give up comics blogging entirely. Of all the aspects of the blog, the one I still enjoy without reservation is the daily Family Circus post. With that in mind, I've created a new blog: The Annotated Family Circus. It's a somewhat different format than what I've been doing here at The Comics Section, and it's a heck of a lot less work. But I think it's still pretty funny, and I'd love it if all my loyal readers (and all of my not-so-loyal readers, too) came and joined me over there. I've decided to host it on Tumblr--which is a decision I'm still not sure about, because it seems sort of glitchy to me--but it seems better a suited for a blog like this. While there is no commenting system at the moment, you can like individual posts and follow the blog if you have a Tumblr account. And of course you can add it to your RSS feed--which you should do immediately--and bookmark it and tell all your friends about it and all that good stuff. There are a couple of weeks worth of posts up already, so go and check it out.

Additionally, I'm going to try my hand at pop culture blogging over at Late Reviews, which is pretty much empty now, though I'm working on getting some content up over there even as you read this. If you're interested in that, feel free to stop by there as well. If you follow me on Twitter, then you're already pretty familiar with the stuff I'll be writing about over there.

As for The Comics Section, I'll still be posting here occasionally when something catches my eye. Most likely, when I do post here, it will be longer, more analytical stuff. (Or, you know, short, snarky stuff. I guess we'll see.) I encourage you to check in to The Comics Section once in a while, but be aware that posting here will be greatly reduced and of a slightly different form (maybe).

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone for reading. I said earlier that the Family Circus posts were the one aspect of the blog that I still enjoy unreservedly, but that's not completely true. That there are people out there who take the time to read my silly blog posts about Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible is a pretty terrific feeling. And I hope you'll continue to read my silly blog posts about The Family Circus. Thank you so much.

And so, in closing, everybody go read my new blog, damn it.

Pluggers: You're a plugger if you started reading "War and Peace" in high school and are nearly done by your 50th class reunion.

And so pluggers are borderline illiterate.

No, this is not surprising.

Marmaduke: Hoping to help me with dinner, are you?

Actually, he was just planning to eat her.

Curtis: Remember, the Brengir is still out there.

And thus ends this year's Kwanzaa-Curtis. On the plus side, I actually understand the moral of this year's story (as opposed to last year's). I also enjoyed the inclusion the mythologically traditional trickster character. And I'm glad the dog came back to life, because I'm a sucker for happy endings.

On the other hand, the lack of COMPLETELY INSANE SHIT was a pretty big disappointment. If a talking yellow mouse was the wildest part of Kwanzaa-Curtis, then it just hasn't been a very exciting Kwanzaa-Curtis. It also seemed a bit shorter than usual.

In any event, I look forward to next year, when I will almost certainly became VERY, VERY EXCITED about it for no discernible reason again.

For Better or For Worse: OK-OK-Would you just go and find something to rub on my back!

This comic is hilarious because John is planning to cannibalize his wife.

In all seriousness, reading through For Better or For Worse reruns, I'm struck by what a gigantic asshole John is most of the time. As I recall, this--like pretty much everything else in the strip--would mellow out over time, but I kind of hate him now.

Mark Trail: A hollowed-out lure would make a good place to hid diamonds!

Given the evidence Mark has here--Ben is using large, lightweight lures--diamond smuggling really is the obvious conclusion.

Marmaduke: He makes friends real quick.

"And then he eats them."