Drug Talk

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Maskital.

I like this cartoon for what it says about pharmaceuticals and western medicine. I'm not against all prescription drugs, I take a crazy pill to keep me level (antidepressant) and in spite of my several attempts to switch to natural alternatives and live without it, I've had to resign myself to the synthetic.

But the biggest downfall of western medicine is that it tends to treat symptoms more than root causes. This reflects human nature in general, of course – most people would rather take drugs to deal with their cholesterol than change their diet and get some exercise. (One of the popular cholesterol-reducing drugs says on their ads: "When diet and exercise aren't enough." That would account for such a small fraction of the public that I can't help but believe the slogan is there just to give people the excuse to take the drug instead of changing their diet.) Same with erectile dsyfunction, diabetes, heart disease etc. In fact, tens of thousands of Americans each year opt for heart surgery over changing their lifestyle. Wow.

I've said many times here before, veganism (as opposed to vegetarianism) cures so many of these ills that if everyone ate that way it would put big pharm nearly out of business. But to suggest such a radical, "fringe" diet to the public would be absurd! It's much less extreme to ask people to fill their bodies with chemicals than with plants. Makes perfect sense.

As for myself, I try my best to keep the root causes at bay and take as few drugs as possible. I haven't taken an antibiotic for more than ten years, I think, and the only Rx I've taken in that amount of time has been my crazy pills. Part of that is luck, of course, but a lot is lifestyle. Still, I'm not immune to the concept of masking the symptom rather than attacking the cause. I suffer from allergies and opt to take over-the-counter drugs rather than clear the city of the offending plants, for instance. I also suffer from an occasional lack of whooziness, so I sniff glue. But it's prescription glue, so it's totally safe.

Note to readers, especially kids: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SAFE GLUE TO SNIFF. DO NOT SNIFF GLUE. SNIFFING GLUE WITH KILL YOU. WHAT YOU SAW ABOVE WAS HUMOR BY A PROFESSIONAL HUMORIST. DO NOT ATTEMPT WITHOUT CONSULTING YOUR PHYSICIAN.

COLORmation?

This is something I happened upon accidentally which is among the strangest things I've ever seen. It is reportedly from the 1960s (except for the "Something Weird" bumpers) and is amazing in both look and content. I love the blatant sexism and the way Captain Scott hops around like a monkey. The process was apparently called "colormation," which is amusing for obvious reasons.

If the video posted here doesn't work, try this link.

New This Week: October 22, 2008

Been a while since I've done one of these...

If I'm recalling correctly, this is the first time that Secret Invasion and Final Crisis have gone head-to-head, coming out on the same day. But for real fun super-hero comic excitement, I'd put my money on Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #4 by Paul Tobin & Alvin Lee--check out the preview here.

Your other best bet this week is the fifth issue of Kevin Huizenga's Or Else, because by my measure Huizenga's combination of innovation and entertainment places him near the top of today's cartoonists.

Other comics of interest this week include:

The latest in Warren Ellis's Apparat line, Aetheric Mechanics.

The re-issued trade collection of Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright.

The seventh issue of Terry Moore's Echo, which I'm enjoying despite its often leisurely pace.


As usual, the full listing of what's due in stores tomorrow can be found on the Comic List Website.

Boot Quaking

Bizarro is made possible today by Fox News Channel's in-depth expose´, "A Fair and Balanced Look at the Race for the White House: Obama the Terrorist-Loving Socialist Baby Killer."

There is no doubt that Fox News Channel is a blight on the country. If it was even remotely disguised as honest journalism with a conservative slant it would be different, but it is quite simply half-truths and complete lies sold as the only "real truth," followed by more complete lies to back up utterly scripted opinions favoring the rich and powerful. It is, in a very real sense, an opiate for the masses, keeping them in line behind the Murdochs, Bushes, and Exxons of the world.

But what can we do about it in a free society? Not much. To shut them down for misleading the country would violate our freedom of speech, which all of us hold dear. But allowing them to perpetuate ignorance, bigotry and jingoism erodes all of our rights and the constitution itself. It's a catch-22 with no end in sight.

On the bright side, judging by the polls and the unprecedented number of people who have donated small amounts to Obama's campaign, I'm tempted to think that most Americans really are smart enough to finally rise up and do something about this trend toward the abyss. Perhaps we really are about to see average people band together and defeat the corporate old-boy network that runs the world. Perhaps on November 4, more people than anyone could have predicted will turn out to vote and McCain will be buried under a landslide of discontent and things will begin to turn around.

Or perhaps the Fox-News-Channel generation of low-info voters will do the same (with the aid of Diebold Republican Voting Machines and crooked precinct captains) and defeat the best chance this country will likely ever have at saving itself from the precipice on which we teter, and all will be lost.

I continue to quake in my boots.

Carpal Knowledge

Bizarro is made possible by a grant from the Peter Fitzperfect and Karrin A. Driveway Foundation.

I love finding new angles on cartoon cliches. Of all the many such cliches in our culture – guy-on-a-desert-island, guy-crawling-through-the-desert, mice-in-a-maze, etc. – the "Tunnel of Love" one is an oddity because I haven't ever seen or heard of an actual Tunnel of Love (that isn't a modern version of the cliche) and suspect they haven't been around in half a century or more. Yet, the romantic carnival attraction remains a well-used cliche in our culture, popping up with fair regularity.

These cliches are no accident, of course. Certain set-ups just lend themselves to commenting on life. The psychiatrist's couch and the gates of Heaven are two perfect examples. You can just say so much about the human condition in those situations.

The "Tunnel of Love" cliche represents the beginning of one of life's many journeys, one that starts out all rainbows and unicorns, but as often as not turns out badgers and amputations. I've seen much better Tunnel of Love cartoons than this one of mine, in fact, I think I've done better ones myself, but I like the wordplay of this one, combined with the image of the person with a computer in a boat.

Great Cartoon

I just love this comic by Ted Rall. One of those wish-I'd-written-it sort of gags.

Slug the Terrorists

(Click image to make it oh-so biggerer)

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Association of Photographers of Exceptionally Questionable Taste.

I cannot tell you how happy I am that this current presidential election is not primarily about terrorism. The only reason terrorism works for terrorists is because it captures people's fear and forces them to change their behavior. The worst thing a government that is supposedly "fighting" terrorism can do, is promote the danger to its people. By doing so, you play right into the hands of the terrorists as they sit back and watch your freedom and peace slip away at your own hands. But the Neo-Cons have done exactly that.

Since the beginning of human history, some politicians have been willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power, even if it means cooperating with the bad guys while pretending to fight them. The truth is, terrorism claims so few lives each year that it is less of a threat to your way of life than pretzels. On average, far more Americans die choking on snack foods each year than at the hands of terrorists. So why are we so easily convinced to give our highest office to an unqualified boob, just because he seems "tougher" in a schoolyard way? Shame on us, we get what we deserve.

It looks as though enough of us have learned our lesson that we will not fall for it again this November, however. Assuming we can keep an eye on the myriad GOP election-tampering operations.

Back to this cartoon: I had a terrific time drawing this one. Designing and illustrating a deviant slug's lair was a kick. Using tiny firecrackers to blow up the salt shaker, the "X" on the garden blueprint, the tiny "to go" packets he's using to fill the shaker, all were jolly little details to think of and draw.

There are six hidden symbols in this drawing and yes, to answer the reader who occasionally complains about this, if I include the same symbol twice it gets counted twice. That's just the way I roll.

By the way, I don't advocate pouring salt on slugs any more than I would pouring acid on babies. Might does not make right, as we have seen on a worldwide scale these past 8 years.