Dancing Mr. Goober

Bizarro is brought to you today by Rock n Roll Icons.

Last week I mentioned that someone wrote to me and said he didn't understand a cartoon of mine and didn't know how I ever got syndicated. This was the gag in question.

I admit that this cartoon is surreal, but that is the intention. You see a street musician setting up with a boombox and a guitar case and you expect him to play guitar. He opens the case and a guitar-shaped man climbs out and starts dancing to the boombox. If I saw this on the streets where I live, I'd laugh.

Come to think of it, this probably is happening in New York City somewhere. There isn't much that's not.

Until tomorrow...a clown you do not know is a disguised stranger.

Believe It or Not

Bizarro is brought to you today by Invisible Superheroes.

Let's talk for a moment about how scary the word "atheist" has become in current-day America. Many people equate the designation "atheist" with epithets like "nazi," "pedophile," "criminal," and "insurance company CEO." As the funky DJ might say, "Let's break it down, now."

Theist: one who believes in god(s).
Polytheist: one who believes in more than one god.
Monotheist: one who believes in only one god.
Atheist: one who does not believe god(s) exist.
Polyunsaturatedtheist: one who believes that god speaks to us through nutrition labels.

Those who fear atheists and atheism are most often living under the assumption that belief in god is what keeps us from running wild in the streets, looting, murdering, raping, and spitting on the sidewalk. This is a common misconception that is easily debunked by leaving one's own bubble and having a peek at history, anthropology, and cultures other than one's own. Shockingly few American fundamentalist Christians realize that if they had been born and raised in India, they'd be just as convinced of the existence of blue elephants and multi-armed banjo players, as they are of a water-walking Jew.

A large percentage of your really heinous crimes have been committed by people who were under the assumption they could hear their god's voice and were following his orders: Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVey, Osama Bin Laden and all Al Qaeda members including those who took down the World Trade Center, everyone behind the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages, all KKK members, George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, that guy outside my building with his car stereo cranked up to 140 decibels, the list goes on and on.

Alternately, many law-abiding people who have contributed positively to society have been self-proclaimed atheists: Ron Reagan, David Suzuki, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Dave Barry, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, Katharine Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Izzard, Patton Oswalt, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Carl Reiner, Gene Wilder, Bruce Lee, Bob Geldof, Albert Camus, Noam Chomsky, Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Sigmund Freud, Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein and countless others.

Whether you like or dislike the people on this second list, the point is that they are (were) not running rampant in the streets for lack of an invisible superhero in the sky telling them the difference between right and wrong or threatening to smite them if they misbehaved.

Of course, not all of your friends, family and neighbors who do believe in a god are using their faith as a weapon, either. The common sense truth is that people don't need supernatural reasons to be good or bad, just as Sarah Palin does not need to hold a political office to publicly display the thickness of her skull. We all have plenty of reasons of our own for what we do.

Because the "A-word" has become synonymous with evil, as erroneous as that is, many atheists prefer to be called "nontheist." I'm not one to give in to language games to try to change people's attitudes, however. Polite terms for Americans of African descent have gone from "colored" to "black" to "African American" in my lifetime alone, and it hasn't stopped racists from declaring President Obama was born in Kenya.

So call me what you will, but don't expect to see me bombing, stealing, raping, discriminating, or denying people basic rights for lack of, or in the name of, invisible superheroes. And don't bother trying to talk "sense" into me with threats of a pyromaniacal dude in tights carrying a pitchfork. Halloween isn't for several more weeks yet.

Secret No More

Bizarro is brought to you today by Star-Crossed Lovers.

A pun that could have gone into my new Sunday Punnies series, but I like the image enough to use it as a stand-alone joke. What's funnier than a middle-aged man in ladies underwear? Lots of things, I know, but who says this cartoon has to be the funniest thing ever? Check out the size of his package. What the...?

I anguished over how to draw the super villain's lair but I didn't want to clutter the whole thing up with all kinds of machinery and sciency stuff, so I went with a sparse, modern look. I figure his death ray machine is in another room.

Until next time, ...don't forget to tell all your friends to follow me on Twitter. I don't know why, exactly, but do it.

Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days *
2 (+6). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
3 (-1). Mercy Thompson Homecoming
4 (-1). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
5 (+5). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
6 (N). Stitches: A Memoir
7 (-3). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
8 (+9). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
9 (+2). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
10 (-5). Watchmen
11 (-5). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
12 (+6). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
13 (-1). Fables Vol. 12: The Dark Ages
14 (+5). Asterios Polyp
15 (-2). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
16 (-7). The Complete Persepolis
17 (-1). Batman: Year One
18 (-11). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb *
19 (N). The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics
20 (-6). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
21 (+1). Batman: The Long Halloween
22 (+4). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974 Box Set
23 (+9). Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Deluxe Edition
24 (R). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
25 (+4). Parker: The Hunter
26 (-2). Fun Home
27 (-7). Tumor Chapter 1 (Kindle)
28 (-5). V for Vendetta
29 (+2). The Stonekeeper's Curse (Amulet, Book 2)
30 (-3). The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974
31 (N). World of Warcraft Vol. 2 HC
32 (-11). American Born Chinese
33 (+10). Final Crisis
34 (-8). A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge
35 (+1). Yotsuba&!, Vol. 6 *
36 (N). Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth *
37 (-4). Batman: Dark Victory
38 (-4). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
39 (-). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
40 (N). Warcraft: Legends Volume 5
41 (N). The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation
42 (-5). The Arrival
43 (R). Mouse Guard Volume 2: Winter 1152
44 (R). Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation
45 (R). Bone: One Volume Edition
46 (N). Angel, Volume 5: Aftermath *
47 (-7). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
48 (-13). The Joker
49 (-21). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5) *
50 (R). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House


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

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* Now that classes are in swing, the University Effect seems to be wearing off. This causes other books (e.g. the Wimpy Kid volumes) to slide back up into the top ten. Watchmen slides down to the #10 slot, which I believe is the lowest it has been since I started keeping track of these charts.

* A very high debut for David Small's Stitches: A Memoir, which goes to show that the surest way to pop up into the top ten is a positive review in the New York Times.

* Other debuts include the Spiegelman- & Mouly-edited The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics; a couple of volumes based on the Warcraft computer games; Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, a biography of Bertrand Russell; and The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation, which has been out for a year now.

* The only manga on the list is the pre-order for the latest volume of Yotsuba&!. And Marvel is absent; how long will their new Mouse-eared overlords stand for Marvel's anemic trade program?

Psycho Analyzes

Bizarro is brought today before your face by Signage Improvement.

I'm not sure why I drew myself as the analyst in this cartoon. I didn't really mean to, it just sort of came out that way in the pencil sketch and got even more so when I inked it.

Perhaps it is what they call a "Freudian slip." Perhaps I have a closeted sheep within me that I am afraid to embrace. Buried deep in the cockles of my being could be mounds of squooshy wool and big floppy ears, yearning to bleat and graze and follow the herd from hill to dale.

Or, maybe I am the wolf, wishing I could break the societal constraints of our culture and run naked in the wild, ripping the throats out of weaker beings.

Perhaps I secretly see myself as the table, patiently waiting in silence to offer a sip of water or a tissue.

Or, I'm just an egomaniac who likes to draw himself. Kind of pathetic.


Until next time...if you want to distract the monkeys, you may have to throw some bananas.

CONTEST #3 WINNER

The winner of this week's contest is Joe K. from Illinois. Congrats, Joe, send me your mailing address in a comment (which I won't post) or an email and I'll send you your booty!

It has come to my attention that this contest is too easy. So next week, I'm going to throw a wrench in the works to make it a little tougher for the "flip back and forth between tabs" style competitors. Level the playing field a bit.

Thanks again for playing, a cartoon post follows.

Which late comic will we kick around now?

2009 is a banner year, with both Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine & Planetary publishing their long-delayed conclusions.

Which comic will now become the poster child for extremely late comics?

I'm voting for the final issue of Ambush Bug: Year None, which was originally due out in January...