There is no truth to the rumor that I've been quiet here because I've been abducted by the UFOs.

Or that they've asked me to please not call them boring.

Anyway, the Who Gets Kicked Off poll is up now on the forum, and today's voting bonuses are a sprite strip in which two rumormongers (including one with a hat) discuss the voting, and a bad translation of today's comic.

For today's bonuses, Contestant 5 concludes Round 4 of Rumormonger Idol - and in a sprite strip, Contestant 6 considers life after Rumormonger Idol.

(Apparently no invasions or abductions that we know of from last night... boring UFOs!)

I'm looking out the back window, and there are a whole bunch of things flashing different colors in the sky right now.

I haven't identified them yet, they're flying in all sorts of directions, and they're certainly objects! So for now at least I'm seeing UFOs out the back window. (And so are some other friends and relatives in other parts of Northeast PA.)

Interesting!

To all the people who have arrived here lately searching for "who got kicked off Idol" - it was Contestant 6! But I doubt very much that was quite what you were searching for... :)

Round 4 of Rumormonger Idol begins now... Contestant 2 has some new modifications, and Contestant 4 is trying out a new strategy. What do you think?

(Oh, and for anyone who did get here with that search string or some variation of it, it seems that the answer you were most likely looking for this week was "Sanjaya.")

Brant Parker, dead at 86.

Just eight days after Johnny Hart.

It's a busy day in the extended V3 universe... In addition to today's V3 strip, there are new strips up at all three spinoffs!

(And if that's not enough, vote for V3 and see a Rumormonger Idol strip and a bad translation of today's strip!)

A few more Rumormonger Idol Round 3 bonuses today - A few parting words (or not) on the show from Contestant 6, and a sprite strip with a few thoughts from him off the show.

(What are your thoughts?)

Today's bonus strip - the Rumormonger Idol Round 3 results are in, and one of the judges has a few comments!

Johnny Hart, dead at 76.

I'm going to have to go through some boxes in my attic and find some of the older B.C. and Wizard of Id books to read again - they used to be my favorite after Peanuts. (I wouldn't describe some of his more recent work as my favorite - but I still read the comics in the paper every day.)

Silence in the Darkness on Q16 has a new strip up today. And you probably thought (hoped?) I was kidding about that one... :) (Also, Ebb's Children updated yesterday, and Z7 did today.)

Today's bonuses: A bad translation of today's strip, and a sprite strip with a Rumormonger Idol rumor.

Last year around this time I put up a sprite bonus strip (like this one!) that I claimed was going to be the new look for Station V3.

Obviously, that didn't happen. And I wouldn't do something like that again.

So instead, today's second bonus is a preview of a new Station V3 spinoff.

(Really!)