Christmas Covers - December 20

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Celebrate Christmas with Professor Garbanzo, Mr. Spook, Beanish, and the rest of the Beanworld residents on the cover of the brand new Larry Marder's Beanworld Holiday Special.

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 5 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Archie Giant Series Magazine #218)
(2006: 52 week 33)
(2005: Strangers in Paradise #70)
(2004: The Amazing Spider-Man #314)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

3 Sheets to the Wind

Bizarro is brought to you today by Taliban's Discount Clothiers.

Since yesterday's cartoon sparked such a lively debate about religion's place in law making, I decided to post this cartoon from last January, which, if memory serves, appeared on this blog back then. I'm too lazy to look it up.

When this first ran, I got a couple of complaints from people who accused me of bigotry toward Islam. This plays into yesterday's theme about gay marriage because less important than my silent respect for another person's religious beliefs is the rights of the victims of those beliefs. The burqa robs a person of her identity, as this cartoon shows, and places her irrevocably as a second-class citizen. I don't believe religion is an acceptable excuse for oppression, bigotry, murder, imprisonment, or any number of other atrocities visited upon the world by people, and I think it is important to make a stand against it, both here and abroad.

That being said, I think this cartoon is funny. I've often thought of one of those cheesy photo studio shots taken of a Taliban man, his wife, and their three daughters, with all the women in burqas. Does he carry it in his wallet to show people? Does he remember which ghost is which kid? Can he even be sure that the people under the robes are his family?

Friday Night Fights: Earth-2 Superman vs. Post-Crisis Superman

From Infinite Crisis #5 (2006). Art by Jerry Ordway. Letters by Nick J. Napolitano. Colors by Guy Major. Story by Geoff Johns. (click pic for larger)

Ka-Pow? Krashh!

Friday Christmas Five of a Kind: By Dickens!

I've collected cover scans for over 1000 comics with a Christmas theme, which at 25 per year would take me over 40 years to post them all! So every Friday during December this year I'm posting five theme-related Christmas covers.

Nothing says Christmas like sleepless nights, ghosts from your past, and difficult labor-management relations. That must be why Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a favorite this time of year!








Classics Illustrated #16 (1990) (by Gary Gianni)
Classics Illustrated #50 (1997)
King Classics #9 (1977)
March of Comics #33 (ca. late 1940s)
Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978) (by Bob Hall & Steve Leialoha)

Christmas Covers - December 19

Superman and other heroes help Santa Claus pass out presents on Frank Quitely's cover to this year's DCU Holiday Special.

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 6 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Walter Lantz New Funnies #167)
(2006: Omaha the Cat Dancer vol. 2 #1)
(2005: Marvel Comics Super Special #39)
(2004: The Spirit #12)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Brokeneck Mountain

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unexpected Visits From Mother Nature.

I'm not too modest to admit that I'm proud of this cartoon. It isn't easy to get politics, slavery, and gay rights onto the funny pages (as opposed to the editorial page), especially all in the same cartoon.

Readers who see my work in the newspaper as well as online, will notice that in the black and white version used in most markets, the cowboy's line ended with a question mark. That was a typo on my part, which I later corrected for the color version. The gag works either way, but I was going for a sarcastic proclamation by the cowboy, not a question.

This cartoon points out that times have changed in the past 150 years, but not as much as we'd like to think. While we no longer officially sanction discrimination based on race, but we still officially discriminate against romantic proclivities.

To those that argue that race is "born" while sexual orientation is a "choice," I would ask, was your sexual orientation a choice? If you didn't consciously choose what turns you on, what makes you think anyone else can?

Christmas Covers - December 18

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Trim the tree with Donald and his nephews on Tony Strobl's cover to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #364 (1971).

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 7 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Guy Garder: Warrior #39)
(2006: Impulse #45)
(2005: Adventures of Superman #487)
(2004: Mutt & Jeff #32)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)