CAPOOT COMEDY

Woe and behold, my comedy shows next week have been canceled. The producer behind it decided to kill the show, refund ticket sales, and take a loss.




















He's used to producing shows in LA and, not being familiar with the way things work in NY, was not able to get the press and advanced ticket sales as quickly as he had hoped for. Comedy shows in NYC pretty much dry up all summer, as most New Yorkers leave the city: rich folks go to the Hamptons, the rest of us go upstate. Most of what is left is tourists, who have such a wide variety of Broadway shows to go to, they tend not to patronize the offbeat stuff.

He still likes the concept of a comedy show of cartoonists, as do we who were in the show, so we are looking at possibly remounting it later in the year after Little Boy Blue has blown his horn and the sheep return from the meadows.

Just thought you'd like to know. Especially if you are somewhere in Nebraska right now, hitchhiking your way across the country from California, hoping to make it to the Tuesday opening.

Bottleful of Messages

Bizarro is brought to you today by Sexy Killers.

I like finding new twists on cartoon cliches, like the man-on-a-desert-island theme, so I'm proud of this one.

I'm way behind on work and life and everything else, so I can't write much today. My week of comedy shows is coming up in a few days and I've got to get crackin'.

Just did an interview today for a show on Sirius XM satellite radio that will air sometime soon, but not sure when. The host, Mark Seman, is a great guy, we had a fun chat and I think it will make for interesting listening if you have that technology. I think the show is called "Getting Late" and also the term "Raw Dog" is somehow pertinent. If you're into that stuff, maybe you know when it's on. I can't find it on the Google.

Amazon Top 50

Here are the Top 50 Graphic Novels on Amazon this afternoon. All the previous caveats apply.

1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
2 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
3 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (-). Watchmen
5 (-). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
6 (+2). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 3: Century, No. 1: 1910
7 (-1). The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders
8 (+6). Final Crisis *
9 (-2). Star Trek: Countdown TPB
10 (-1). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
11 (+6). Batman: The Killing Joke
12 (+9). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
13 (-3). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
14 (+10). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
15 (-2). Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha #3: Return to the Clans *
16 (+10). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
17 (-5). Stephen King's Dark Tower: Treachery
18 (-2). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
19 (-8). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
20 (N). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972
21 (+9). Thor, Vol. 2 *
22 (-3). Bone: One Volume Edition
23 (-5). V for Vendetta
24 (N). Batman: Year One
25 (N). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5) *
26 (+22). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
27 (+2). Blueberry Girl
28 (N). Berserk Volume 29
29 (N). Star Wars: Vector Volume 2 - Chapters 3 & 4 *
30 (N). Trinity Vol. 1
31 (-). Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 3
32 (-9). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
33 (N). Wrapped-Up FoxTrot: A Treasury with the Final Daily Strips
34 (-1). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
35 (N). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
36 (N). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb *
37 (N). Nevermore *
38 (-18). Bleach, Vol. 27
39 (+1). The Complete Persepolis
40 (N). The Dark-Hunters, Vol. 1 *
41 (N). American Born Chinese
42 (N). Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, Volume 4
43 (N). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Omnibus Volume 7 *
44 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
45 (N). Escape from the Forest (Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha, No. 2)
46 (N). X-Force Vol. 2: Old Ghosts *
47 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
48 (-20). The Joker
49 (N). Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 7
50 (N). Ouran High School Host Club, Volume 12


Items with asterisks (*) are pre-order items.


Commentary:

* While the top of the list remains relatively stable, the bottom shows a lot of debuts this week.

* Kind of surprised to see pre-orders for Final Crisis moving up into the top 10. Also surprised to see Trinity showing up on the list. I suspect that these are just regular super-hero readers grabbing up Amazon-level discounts.

* Upward movement with Buffy titles, no doubt due to the 5th volume becoming pre-orderable.

* I'm always surprised when backlist titles such as Batman: Year One and American Born Chinese suddenly pop up on the list for no discernible reason.

* Looks as though The Photographer may have some legs after all. We'll see if it holds up over the next few weeks.

Smelly Sexy

Bizarro is brought to you today by King Tut.

This cartoon is simple wordplay, yes, but it makes me smile. It was dreamed up by my cartoonist, stand-up comic, long-time friend, Mike Capozzola.

What struck me as odd when I was drawing this cartoon is the way "pharaoh" is spelled, which I had never really noticed before I had to letter it by hand. How did the second "a" get thrown in there ahead of the "o?" I'm a fan of etymology (and also entomology, but that's a topic for a different post) but I don't know why this strange spelling exists. Usually, a foreign word that comes from a language with a different alphabet, like a Chinese word, for instance, is likely to be spelled phonetically in English. But that would mean that the word was originally pronounced "fay-ray-oh." Maybe that's the case, I don't know, or maybe it didn't come from the original Egyptian word. I could look it up, but it would cut into my leisure time.

Apparently, chemical compatibility is a huge indicator for sexual attraction. In other words, whether you're aware of it or not, you like the way your lover smells. I have experienced this myself on a few occasions (in my bachelor days) when a woman I was attracted to became instantly less attractive when I kissed her. It wasn't that she wasn't a good kisser, but something about the visceral experience of being that close was unappealing.

I knew a redneck guy from Oklahoma years ago who believed so ardently in the idea that women react sexually to a man's pheromones, that he would not bath regularly, confident that his B.O. would help him score. No, I'm not kidding. He even recommended this technique to his teenage sons.

But who am I to judge? Perhaps in his remote corner of Oklahoma, it worked.

For those of you keeping scorecards at home, I'm feeling much better today. The soupy, black miasma of depression left me midway through last evening and I'm normal again. Then I had a very good session with my therapist this morning which helped me to get a better grip on my issues and their effect on my will to live. I'm also extremely appreciative of all the comments readers have left on this blog, and supportive emails I've gotten since yesterday. This blog is sometimes as good a therapy as my visits to my shrink, and considerably cheaper.

You've made me feel like a pretty girl at the prom, and I thank you.

When Hairy Met Harry

Bizarro is brought to you today by Family Entertainment.

Not much to say about this cartoon today, feeling really low. If I was a twitterer, I could tweet, "feeling really low today." But I'm not, you're all I have.

A trusted friend (Julie) said I should get on the Twitter because it's a really easy way to advertise my comedy shows and stuff, and I'm sure she's right, but I just don't have the energy to get started. I have no interest in that sort of thing outside of the promotional value, to be honest, and as I said, I'm feeling low.

Just thought of something to say about this cartoon. I was channel surfing the other night and came across one of the early Bruce Lee movies – Way of the Dragon or Get in the Dragon or Dress Like a Dragon. Something like that. In the final fight scene, he's practicing his pajama arts on a young and shirtless Chuck Norris. This was before Chuck discovered body waxing because he was as covered with hair as the guy in the "after" part of my cartoon. No exaggeration. He had big, thick, hair epaulets on his shoulders.

I hope I'm better tomorrow. Damn this difficult life.

Pie or Palimony?

Bizarro is brought to you today by Marriage Counseling.

I don't have a lot of time to post today as I'm a day-and-a-half behind on my cartoon deadlines this week. If I don't get on the move, I'm going to be working kid's birthday parties dressed like the amusing fellow in this cartoon.

I could say a ton about counseling, I'm a big fan of it both for individuals and couples. I don't know how people get through life without it. Couples counseling can be a serious drag, but it can work wonders, too. Then again, so can breaking up. Depends on what your problems are.

The Horror

Today's Bizarro is brought to you buy Tough Money.

Don't get me started about airlines. Too late, I'm started.

I used to love to travel, but between the absurd pricing structures of airlines and the idiotic ritualistic voodoo practices of the T.S.A., I can barely stand it.

This cartoon got a good amount of mail from people who so closely resemble one side of the cartoon or the other that they were sure I was behind them in line at the airport. The simple reason is that this happens all the time.

Tiny people pay extra for a bag weighing two pounds more than a gigantic person's bag, because the airlines need to charge for "extra weight."

I've never bought jet fuel, but I'm sure it is very expensive and the airlines would like to charge more for extra weight. Fine. Can't blame them. But if they attack the problem where it really exists – in the seats of coach, not the luggage compartment – there would be discrimination lawsuits-a-plenty. Some people can't help being heavy (some), no argument here. But does it give them the right to be charged the same when they are consuming more services?

What if they charged per pound for luggage and passengers alike? It takes more fuel to fly a 300 lb man across the country than it does to fly me at less than half the weight, so he'd paying the same amount for goods and services, but since he consumes more, the price is higher. He pays the same for food as I do, but he consumes more. We aren't charged the same per meal in a restaurant, even though I am ordering 1/3 as much as he, so why the airfare inequity? There is no logic to elven folk (like my wife and I) being charged $25 or more for a bag that weighs five pounds more than King Kong's.

But the air travel shenanigans don't end there.

Once you've been fleeced by at the baggage counter, it's off to the security line where you're forced to take off your shoes even if they are flip-flops (because security employees can't be trusted to discern between a thin piece of foam rubber and platform boots full of nuclear weapons), you're only allowed to bring the amount of liquid that will fit into a 3 oz. bottle and only as many of those as will fit into a magic-sized bag (because no one would ever think to team up with someone else and combine their explosive liquids on board), you can't bring a 3 oz. bottle of alcohol on the plane because that's a "security" violation, (but wait, they sell that stuff on board! Does the T.S.A. know this?!), and you can have four 3 oz. bottles of liquid in your magic bag but not one 12 oz. bottle (you can't expect all T.S.A. employees to carry calculators to do the math, right?), and if you're wearing a T-shirt with a long-sleeved garment over it and that garment has buttons it's a "shirt" and can be worn through the metal detector, but if it has a zipper (even a plastic one), it's a "jacket" and must be taken off. Sure, makes perfect sense.

But at least we're "safe."

Once you get to the plane and take your seat, you find you're sitting next to the gigantic guy with the "free" luggage and his girth is hanging over the armrest, so your personal space has been diminished by 10%, even though you paid more to fly.

Then the plane is late to Atlanta (always avoid Atlanta!) and you miss your connecting flight and have to stay overnight, but it was because of "weather," so the airline doesn't have to pay for your motel room.

Then you wake up at 5 a.m. to catch the first flight of the day, put on the clothes you were wearing the day before because you have no luggage, and rush off to the airport in the dark.

You make the flight, it crashes on landing, you're the only survivor and you spend a fortune on therapists for the rest of your life.

And your cat peed on your bed because you were late getting home.

I may never leave the house again.