Kearn,
We've really had a great run of comets in the last decade and a bit! When I began comet observing in late 1980 it seemed an eternity between decent comets, in fact I used to get excited at anything brighter than mag 8
These days there seems to be decent comet nearly every year. By decent I mean clearly visible to the naked eye (mag 3 or so or better). If we miss getting seeing one in one year, we just get 2 the following year like this year. And what a unique event 17P is at the moment, it would problably be centuries before anyone witnesses a mega-outburst of this scale.
Terry