Shameless Friend Promotion: Sara Ryan & Steve Lieber Interviewed on Circle Into Square

The Portland-based online magazine Circle Into Square has a fairly lengthy interview with pals Sara Ryan & Steve Lieber. Don't miss the end where Steve tells you the secret formula for how to break into comics!

Other NYCC News That Makes Me Happy

In addition to the aforementioned totally awesome news that Yotsuba&! is returning, here is other news out of NYCC that makes me happy:

Marvel is doing a series of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers. Marvel should seriously turn over total control of the Marvel Universe to the editing reins of Nate Cosby, because then every comic they put out would be awesome! (link)

Greg Rucka will be writing Detective Comics, featuring Batwoman and bringing in many characters from him old Gotham Central series. Also, Grant Morrison returns to Batman in June. (link)

Kevin Maguire will be drawing The Metal Men & a Spider-Man one-shot. (link)

Chicken Mythology

Bizarro is brought to you today by Big-Headed Babes in Boots.

I think this is a fun alternative to the "why did the chicken cross the road" gag, a theme that has been hit upon tens of thousands of times by cartoonists.

I'm a big fan of chickens, both hens and roosters. I've gotten to know many of them in the privacy of my own home, as CHNW and I have fostered ones rescued from NYC streets, parks, dumpsters, basements, etc.

Most people assume, as I used to, that chickens are stupid. When they are around other chickens they act like chickens and ignore humans for the most part, except to run away clucking and stumbling. Not a very intellectual demeanor. But when they are solo in your apartment, they relate to you, just as cats and dogs do, learn where their food is, cuddle with you while you watch TV, cry when you leave the room, chirp in glee when you return. They'd be terrific pets if they didn't poop indiscriminately. That's just the way the species is designed, no sense trying to house train them. Of course, they're happier outside with other chickens, anyway.

It's always occurred to me that our definition of intelligence is very anthropocentric. In other words, we judge another specie's intelligence by how similar it is to ours. Some are naturally that way – dogs, rats, apes – others are not at all – turkeys, chickens, cattle, sheep. I now try to appreciate other species' intelligence for what it is instead of in comparison to mine. A chicken can't fix a bicycle, but then it hasn't much need for a working bicycle so why would it? When threatened, some birds will pretend to have a broken wing while their offspring escape. I'm not sure I'd think of that if a bear were charging me and my kids in the woods.

This is just one of the many reasons I stay out of the woods with small children.

A prime example of this anthropocentric thinking is that when a human builds a shelter, we call it "intelligence." When a bird builds one it's "instinct."

Because no other species impacts its environment with it's intellect the way we do, we think the world is here for us and that we are the most important species on Earth. (One could easily argue that because of the way we impact our environment, we are the least intelligent species.) We've even written tens of thousands of stories about how we are the reason the earth was created.

Spiders are the only animal that can shoot webs out of their butt and build the equivalent of a skyscraper that both serves as shelter and provides food, all in a matter of minutes. I wonder if they think the world was built for them and the rest of us are just props in the movie of their life?

Shameless Friend Promotion: Jim Ottaviani's T-Minus in May

Turn your February Previews to page 297, where you'll find a listing for pal Jim Ottaviani's latest science non-fiction graphic narrative T-Minus, the story of the space race, with art by his Bone Sharps partners-in-crime Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon. I've been hearing Jim talk about this comic for months (years?) now, so I'm pleased that it's finally coming out. Tell your friendly local comic shop that you want a copy for you and several more for the shelf!

OMG! Yotsuba&! is back!

Great news to start the week: According to Brigid over at MangaBlog, the bestest manga series eveh, Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&!, will be back starting in September, from the fine fine folks at Yen Press.

Kryptonite Kid

(Hint: For a bigger, less blurry glimpse at the intricate glories of the above cartoon, point your cursor [little black arrow on your screen] to any part of the image, then push the button on your mouse [the plastic device that controls the arrow.])

Bizarro is made possible today by Ugly Wedding Dresses.

I've always liked to think about heroes and the unpublished details of their lives before they were famous. What was Clark Kent like as a child? How do you control a kid with superhuman strength in the throes of the Terrible Twos? It is common for children of this age to throw a spoon across the room. How did Ma and Pa Kent avoid getting impaled?

As a Catholic kid, I wondered about Jesus's childhood. Did he have friends his age, or was he the nerdy, overly philosophical kid that nobody wanted to play with? Did he ever get mad at another kid for taking his toy, strike him dead, then bring him back to life before anyone found out?

At what age did Mickey Mouse start wearing those big, dumb shoes? Once he was rich and famous he could afford to be isolated from the riffraff, but before that, was he never chased by a cat? You certainly would want better shoes if you were.

I think a Showtime or HBO series about Superman as a small child would be great. The Kents try to deal with a toddler with superhuman strength, the ability to fly, x-ray vision (there goes their sex life), all without letting any of their friends, family or local townfolk find out about his powers. Year by year, as the actor who plays the toddler grows up, we follow his various struggles with typical childhood trauma through the filter of his tremendous powers. The show isn't about him weilding justice or solving crimes, just coping without flipping out and throwing his schoolmates into the next county when they make fun of his new shoes. Or getting caught looking through the walls of the girl's locker room.

If someone does come up with that series, they'd better be ready to prove they documented it before the date of this blog, because I will come after them with a team of Kryptonite-weilding lawyers.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

I've heard of maving a monkey on your back, but being on the back of a monkey is a whole different story on Andi Watson's cover to Skeleton Key #22 (1997).

(Standard disclaimer about giant gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.