Tuesday 18 November 2008

Eggheads and Bird Love

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Committee to Promote the Redistribution of Wealth.

Like yesterday's comic, I'm not all that thrilled with this cartoon. I think it's okay and will appeal to a decent percentage of readers or I wouldn't have published it, but it doesn't thrill me to the depths of my soul. But that happens. I'd be suspicious of any daily cartoonist who claimed to love all of his/her work.

Two things I do like are the way the old guy's face turned out and the fuzzy blue buildings in the background. This is more-or-less the first time I've done background objects with color only, no line work. I think it works well. Of course, people seeing it in black and white in the newspapers won't see anything in the background at all.

I love pigeons, all birds really, and have always objected to the "flying rat" epithet. The only reason we don't see pigeons as we do other birds is because they are so ubiquitous that we become immune to their beauty. They really are great-looking birds if you view them objectively. And they're fun to have around. CHNW and I have fed them in our backyard (or roof, at our old apartment) for years and they are very entertaining. After a while, you begin to spot individual personality traits, pecking order, etc. There are typically one or two leaders in a flock – for years we had one who came up and pecked on our window daily while the others waited on the roof to be fed.

Chickens are another species of bird that most people have forgotten how to see the beauty in. There are few birds in the world more asthetically gifted than the rooster, yet because we've seen them on our corn flakes boxes all our lives, we ignore them. Chickens (of both sexes) are also very smart and individual, full of charm and personality, if you get to know them on a one-on-one basis. If they didn't poop indescriminately, they'd make excellent housepets. CHNW and I have fostered dozens over the years and they're tons of fun to have around.

NEW BLOG RULES















I've made it a point not to censor the comments on this blog but they've gotten a bit out of hand so I'm changing my policies. I still won't censor opinions, as long as they are expressed in a mature manner, sans profanity or lame insults to other commentators. (You can still insult me all you want.)

I hate being a cop, but I've been getting complaints from readers.