I added avatars to my recent comment gadget using a helper application coded in Python. Blogger has updated its feed format now in December 2011, and comment feeds now include also author avatars (author images) for Blogger users. The update is of course because of the dynamic views – I think everything dynamic views can display comes from feeds (unlike in the "traditional" blogger views).
This is great, and at the same time, will render my avatar fetching application pretty much obsolete. Although it will still work.
I found out about this feed update reading Aratina Cage's Last Comments blog. There's some impressive work, I recommend to check it out: very versatile recent comments gadget, and the new InComm, which looks great.
I will later modify my recent comments gadget to use these new author images from feed, instead of the Python app, and will then post the new version. Stay tuned.