CONTEST #16 WINNERS!

Thanks to everyone who played our incredibly exciting Bizarro Puzzler Teaser Treasure Hunt Game Thing this week. We have our three winners, with a caveat.

1. First place goes to someone good at solving puzzles but not at reading instructions. It was submitted anonymously and had no email address. So who are you? Below, I have posted your winning list. If you can tell me what expletive you began your post with, then provide me with an email address, I'll send you your prize. Leave it in the comments section to any post, I'll see it when I moderate comments and not post your email address.

2. Second place goes to he who goes by "dcr". He's won second place before, and may win first place this week if I don't hear from our mysterious anonymous submitter.

3. Goes to Randy S. He, too, has won before too, taking top honors in contest #15.

A couple of submitters got in before any of you three, but neither had all 15 correct answers.
















Here's a new feature, click here if you want to see the 15 differences graphically circled. Cool.

CONTEST #16

RULES, ETC:
As usual, two images are posted below, one is the original cartoon, the warped image beneath it has been changed in 15 ways. Your mission, if you are the disco royalty that I think you are, is to find those differences.

1. There are 15 differences between the two cartoons.
2. NONE of the differences have to do with the warped nature of the second image.
3. ALL of the differences are something missing, added, or moved, not just "bent" from the distortion. The differences will not be too subtle, so once you spot one you should be relatively certain you've found it. (As opposed to something like, "Is the hat on this one is a shade lighter than the other one? Hmmm.")
4. FIRST PERSON to correctly list the 15 differences in the comments section of the post wins 4 packs of Bizarro Trading Cards, mailed by me personally from Bizarro International Headquarters in Brooklyn. I'll even lick the stamp, unless it's self adhesive. SECOND AND THIRD persons with correct answers will each get 2 packs of Bizarro Trading Cards!
5. Put your email address on your comment so I can contact you if you win. I won't post it or keep it or file it or sell it or mount a Broadway musical about it.
6. If you live outside the U.S., I may not be able to send you a prize. Depends. Canada is probably fine, Saudia Arabia, probably not.

Click on the image below to ENLARGE and PLAY!

The Apple iPad: Will It Save the Comics Industry? Or Destroy It?

Probably neither, at least right away.

Yesterday Apple finally unveiled their tablet computer, the iPad. Which means that after weeks of rampant speculation as to what it means for comics, there's finally something concrete that can be considered.

Apple has decided to use the open ebook standard EPUB for their new iBookstore and reader on the iPad. Which is great for mostly textual books, but not so good for highly graphical publications such as comic books. This means that it is highly unlikely that publishers will offer comics and/or graphic novels directly through iBookstore. Thus, comic distribution on the iPad will no doubt be tied to a number of different 3rd-party apps, such as comiXology and the like. So instead of there being one place on your iPad where you go for all your comics and other reading material, you'll need to fire up a bunch of different apps, each of which has a different interface, different agreements with different publishers, and different pricing schemes. In other words, kind of a mess that won't make it easy for the casual comics reader to decided to download the latest 'it' comic that they hear about on NPR or see a review of the the New York Times.

I could be wrong. Jobs casually mentioned textbooks being part of iBookstore, and in the case of many math- and science-related textbooks there are graphical challenges as well, so maybe there's a plan to support formats other than EPUB in the iBookstore at some point. In which case, we'll be headed down a different rabbit hole all together.

Notes on a Zebra

Bizarro is brought to you today by Betty's Secret.

I draw the vast majority of things in my cartoons from memory but now and then I like to get things especially right, which was the case with the zebras here. While researching pictures of zebras online for this cartoon, I was struck by how incredibly beautiful they are. You get used to looking at things all your life and tend to take them for granted, but I find that if I take a moment to step outside myself and imagine I'm seeing something for the first time, like many people before the invention of photography certainly did with animals like zebras, it is truly amazing. A white horse all covered with bold black stripes. It's like they were concieved by a talented gay designer. Unfortunately for the zebras, this has also led to a lot of arrogant disregard for their lives.

I feel this way about roosters, as well. We're so used to seeing them on cornflakes boxes that we forget what exotic birds they are. Roosters are among my favorite animals in the world. Here's another one.

A regular reader wrote to me this week and asked me if the face in the tail area was intentional. It was not, but I see something that looks a bit like a face so he's not totally crazy. Anybody else notice this or is LeRoy perhaps crazier than I think?

Come back later today for the contest. You will experience pleasure.

Contest TODAY!!

Come back today at 7pm NYC (Eastern) Time to compete in this week's contest. First three people to solve the puzzle win BIZARRO TRADING CARDS!!! Yessssssss!

Here's one of the previous contests, to acquaint you with the process. Happy puzzling!

*"BIG" in this context, means small.