I’m done working on next week’s comic, Mr. Squirrel.

WordPress kindly reminded me upon posting yesterday’s comic that since Merby was actually the author of one of my blog’s past posts, that only then did I officially reach the 1K post mark.  A thousand posts is a lot of internet storage space to be wasting, but I didn’t get to that point by just posting unreadable garbage and every blurry squirrel photo I could salvage off my hard drive.  No, there has actually been some quality material on this blog that was too good to ever be Freshly Pressed.  In my continuing effort to keep Fridays from being postless, I’m going to do yet another tiresome “best of” retrospective… only this time I’ll be looking back at the entirety of The Nest’s archive, not just digging through the previous year’s dumpster.

Why is this thing so full of dead possums?

It’s just possible, though unlikely, that you may have wondered at some point in time what my personal favorite entry is in my wide variety of features I contribute to here at The Nest.  Well, as hard as that is since I’m my work’s own biggest fan (As you can tell from my constant self-depreciating nature)… I’m going to make those difficult decisions today and give you the very, very best of The Nest!  Posts guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and a tear to your beer…

Uh oh… we better get liquored up for this!

Best Artwork Post: Evil Squirrel’s Last Supper

Lightning may strike me at any moment…

Of all of the art I’ve posted to this blog over the last four years, this was far and away the most detailed piece I ever did… and the clear winner in this category.  Da Vinci’s classic version of The Last Supper done by cartoon critters with no shame.  When I finally break out of the Sydney Opera House and into The Louvre on my annual report, this will be going on the wall between The Mona Lisa and Monet’s impressionistic unicorn…

Best Squirrels In The News Post: Selfie Destruction

Squirrels gone wild!

Once upon a time, kids were taught to respect nature while they were pulling the legs off of caterpillars.  But not in this day and age, when widespread smartphone usage means anything and everything suddenly becomes a self-serving photo op.  It’s the tragicomic tale of boy meets squirrel sponsored by Instagram and the makers of 500 shots you have to get in your stomach for rabies…

Best Flashback Friday Post: Would You Like Fry Guys With That?

Thank you Grimace for all of the buttplug searches you brought to my blog!

Those of you with long memories may recall my original Friday series took a peek back at some of the things from our nostalgic past… and in this episode, I profiled the McDonaldland cast that we knew and loved in the 80’s, as well as their more drug fueled, creepy as shit predecessors in the 70’s.  You will learn why every Mickey Dee’s playground in the 80’s had a Big Mac cop jail even though the character was nowhere to be seen in commercials of the time!

Best Retro TV Ad Post: You Can Look It Up

This is how I roll in the Information Age!

Retro ad posts just seem to bring out the very best/worst in me, which made this category so tough to call… but my tribute to those annoying Encyclopedia Britannica commercials from the late 80’s and early 90’s seems to be my go-to when I want to show off my gift of sarcastic wit.  Not that EB and their whiny-ass spokeskid didn’t lob me a whole string of meatballs to knock out of the park in their two part anthology of shitty advertising and even shittier visionary skills.  This post is your key to the Information Age!

Best Photo Prompt/Picture Day Post: A Marsupial Mecca

Look, Mommy! The people! They all love us!!!

When our Mecca patio was invaded by a possum family one night last summer, it was such a can’t miss photo op that I ran two red lights just to race home and get my camera before they left.  Possums aren’t that uncommon around where I live, but they rarely bring their kidlets around… and no matter how homely you think fully grown American possies look, those baby Busters are just so damn adorable!

Best Oddball Post: Mystery Pony Theater 3000

Ponies know a ripoff when they see one.

In what had to be one of my nuttiest ideas ever that worked out to perfection… I used The Cutter’s prompt asking for something that involved ponies and parked the quartet in my collection in front of middle of the night television for them to freely mock the on air garbage humans are subjected to in the wee hours.  Knowledge of the Ponydom isn’t necessary to get most of the post’s humor, but you just might pick some up anyway.

Best Saturday Squirrel Post: An Army Of One

He’s a lean, mean, fighting machine.

It’s flat out impossible to pick a single post out of all of the amazingly cute squirrel pictures I’ve taken over the years… but finding the one with the best story behind it really isn’t a contest.  Two summers ago, I had my AC unit stolen by copper thieves (A blessing in disguise as it turned out)… and it led to one sweltering June week that may have resulted in the most creative period my blog’s ever seen (As you’ll see below).  While all hot and bothered with the windows open, I took a lot of squirrel photos… many of which were of one particular squirrel having all kinds of fun with a few sticks in my yard.  I mined those photos for one amazing Saturday Squirrel post that weekend that is truly one of the best works I’ve ever done on this blog.

Best Comic Strip Post: #112 “The Shrink”

Professional ethics do not apply when dealing with imaginary creatures.

Back in the glory days of my ESN comic strip, there was a simple yet effective formula that led to a lot of my funniest cartoons… have the story being told in the first five panels suddenly take a bizarre, unexpected and clever turn in the sixth frame where hilarity would ensue.  This comic, posted the same week I was without air conditioning, is my absolute favorite using that successful setup that was my bread and butter before I became such a slave to my tired gags.  It’s one of the few that features Hottie in a villainess role, and also perfectly captures the fact that no matter how awesome and popular he may be… Rainbow Donkey is still prone to getting the same shitty treatment as the rest of my characters do in my comics.

Best Special Series: My Millionaire Journey

As if it could have been anything else?

When I first mentioned in a Flashback Friday post a long time ago that I once embarrassed myself in front of millions of people on national TV, I knew it was a story I was eventually going to have to spill.  But I figured it’d be mostly boring and take about 5 of 6 posts to fully tell.  Well, it did start out rather dull and uninteresting… until I got to the New York part and really began to find my groove and have a hell of a lot of fun with the tale.  And that 5 or 6 post part was obviously taken all the way up to Part 33.  No matter how long I am able or willing to blog here, I have little doubt The Millionaire Journey will fill the role of The Nest’s magnum opus.  It was something you really had to be around at the time it was being posted to fully experience the excitement it created among my readers.  I not only looked forward to typing up the next entry every Friday morning, but those I had hooked on the series seemed to await the next juicy installment just as eagerly.  You almost have to wait a week between reading each post to fully appreciate what made this neverending saga so good…

The Nest knows how to pull off an evil cliffhanger.

Well, thank you for indulging me in this self-indulgent post.  You can all thank me later for sparing you a best earworm entry…

Tastes like teen spirit!