Here's some shots from Tuesday's Mardi Gras parade showing the life-size Richard Thompson Obama finger-puppet. I haven't checked my photos yet due to having a cold and feeling lazy.

ComicsDC is on break for an extended weekend - we're off to Heroes Con. Well, Richard and I are. Randy T. may keep posting as we're off to Charlotte, NC. Stop by Richard's table if you want to find me. Or him actually.

By the way, I'll have a few copies of the Interplanetary Journal of Comic Art, and 3 copies of Film & TV Adaptations of Comics for sale (you can tell I didn't plan ahead when Richard asked me to come along) and a dummy of the Harvey Pekar: Conversations book. Richard will have his Richard's Poor Almanac book and original art for sale.

Richard's on a roll with a one and a two good beach cartoons and a great Stalin caricature that I immediately saved from the Post Magazine when it first appeared.

However, I'm guessing he should be working rather than blogging since we'll be off to Heroes Con next Thursday. For myself - I'm going to Synetic Theater's "Carmen."

Actually, that's really the Rhodes go to the beach. We're sponging off some neighbors at Rehobeth, DE, and laughed out loud at Richard Thompson's Richard's Poor Alamanack on last minute beach house rentals. Unfortunately, it's not online yet, but you can make a Fred Thompson finger puppet instead.

Richard Thompson's Richard's Poor Almanack (why'd you add the 'k' anyway?) on Saturday has a Fred Thompson finger puppet... to which I can only say, "Fred Thompson?" Who cares about Fred Thompson? We could have had a Paris Hilton puppet, or a Angela Merkel or a Putin, but we get Fred Thompson? This isn't some underhanded propagandizing by relatives, is it?

Richard Thompson, fledgling ComicsDC scout reports, "Matt Wuerker, resident cartoon genius at Politico.com, created this vast interactive image of the political heavens."

Richard also regularly makes up new constellations in his Richard's Poor Almanack panel in the Post.

Richard Thompson has a hilarious sendup of Free Comic Book Day that about 37 readers of the Post will get and appreciate. In their continuing effort to combat e-piracy, the Post hasn't put it online yet, although you can see last week's panel.

Meanwhile a few other strips in the Post are worth noting today (that's the May 5th strips).

Bud Grace goes for a dose of reality in the Piranha Club.

Bill Griffith's History of the washing machine in Zippy was just lovely.

Pearls before Swine breaks the 4th wall in a graphically-amusing way.

Speaking of graphic, what's the deal with yesterday's Baldo? First his aunt walks in on him naked in the bathroom and seems to suggest a Red Hot Chili Peppers fashion, and then we get this strip. Am I reading too much into this or is there a "size of his dick" joke here? For Better or For Worse had a PMS joke today, and Brewster Rockit had a fart joke with spiderwebs coming out of a character's ass (a Spider-Man 3 tip of the hat).

Finally on Monday, two diametrically-opposed cartoonists ran similar strips on the Virginia Tech murders right next to each other: Prickly City vs Candorville.