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: Dog Days *
2 (N). Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
3 (+2). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb *
4 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
5 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
6 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
7 (-). The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks *
8 (+22). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5) *
9 (-1). Mercy Thompson Homecoming
10 (-4). Watchmen
11 (+11). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974 Box Set
12 (-3). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
13 (+4). Batman: The Killing Joke
14 (-). Stitches: A Memoir
15 (-). Asterios Polyp
16 (-). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
17 (-6). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
18 (-5). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
19 (+1). Fables Vol. 12: The Dark Ages
20 (N). Naruto, Volume 46 *
21 (-11). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
22 (+21). Bloom County Complete Library Volume 1 *
23 (-11). The Complete Persepolis
24 (N). Rosario+Vampire, Volume 9 *
25 (+1). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
26 (R). The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz HC
27 (N). Astonishing X-Men Omnibus *
28 (-5). Batman: The Long Halloween
29 (N). Ultimatum Premiere HC *
30 (-9). Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Deluxe Edition
31 (-12). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
32 (-5). The Stonekeeper's Curse (Amulet, Book 2)
33 (-8). Batman: Year One
34 (-3). Angel, Volume 5: Aftermath
35 (N). Pokemon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, Volume 5 *
36 (N). The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology
37 (R). The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974
38 (+6). V for Vendetta
39 (R). The Best American Comics 2009 *
40 (-3). Bone: One Volume Edition
41 (R). Masterpiece Comics
42 (-10). The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad *
43 (-25). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
44 (-4). Stephen King's Dark Tower: Treachery
45 (-6). Locke & Key: Head Games
46 (R). The Marvel Encyclopedia *
47 (R). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
48 (R). Batman: R.I.P.
49 (-15). Batman: Hush
50 (-4). Blankets


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:

* A huge debut this week for Logicomix, which jumps right up onto the charts at the #2 position; this is the biggest debut since I started tracking these rankings.

* Not to be outdone, the #1 title, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, hits #4 on the overall books bestsellers. (Logicomix weighs in at #48 on the overall list.)

* Four manga titles debut this week, including the newest Naruto volume at #20.

* Marvel place five titles this week in the bottom half of the list, including debuts for the Astonishing X-Men Omnibus and the Ultimatum collection; also, the new eidtion of the DK-published Marvel Encyclopedia enters the rankings as well. SO a relatively big week for Marvel.

WINNER of CONTEST #6!!!

After many many many submissions with incorrect answers, the fourth comment posted with the correct list of differences belonged to one Ben Buckley. Congrats, Ben, you'll be getting five packages of Bizarro Trading Cards (assuming you live in North America.) Boy, do I envy you!

BEN, YOUR EMAIL DIDN'T WORK FOR ME FOR SOME REASON. I'LL TRY AGAIN.

As many of you know, #6 was a more difficult puzzle than the previous ones. Most of the submissions were incorrect in one way or another, and although it was posted at 6pm NYC time, by 8:30pm, I still didn't have four correct lists, and thus no winner. After I posted (and Tweeted) that fact at 8:35pm, a huge wave of new submissions came in.

Anway, here are names of the first three correct contestants, an honorable mention goes to them!:
Brian Gac
Marcello
Spyra

Below is Ben's correct list of differences. The most common error people made was missing that the border had been completed in the second image, or counting the border as three differences instead of one: top border is complete, left border is complete, etc.

Click the fuzzy little words to enlarge them.









Thanks again for playing, I'll be posting another contest next week and a new cartoon blog every day between now and then. Congrats to everyone who played, whether you got the correct answers or not. At least it kept you off the streets for a few minutes.

NO WINNER YET!!!!

AS OF 8:30PM, I STILL DON'T HAVE A WINNER FOR CONTEST #6. ONLY ONE CORRECT ENTRY YET, EVERYONE ELSE HAS HAD AT LEAST ONE ANSWER WRONG.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN. I'M SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE THE FOURTH CORRECT ANSWER.

GOOD LUCK AND NO BITING.

CONTEST #6!!!

As usual, one image is the original cartoon, the warped image has been changed. Your mission, if you are heroic enough to tackle it, is to find those differences.

1. There are 15 differences between the two cartoons.
2. NONE of the differences have to do with the warped nature of the second image.
3. ALL of the differences are something missing, added, or moved, not just "bent" from the distortion.
4. FOURTH PERSON to correctly list the 15 differences in the comments section of this post wins 5 packs of Bizarro Trading Cards, mailed by me personally from Bizarro International Headquarters in Brooklyn.
5. Put your email address on your comment so I can contact you if you win. I won't post it or keep it or file it or sell it or mount a Broadway musical about it.

Click on the image to make it bigger and happy puzzling, amigos!

Frank Sex Talk

Bizarro is brought to you today by Favourites.

Let's talk about my sex life, shall we? Not really my sex life, but my inability to make the sex happen with a new acquaintance, like our friend Mr. Hornybull is attempting to do in this cartoon.

It is my impression that there exist human males who can approach females unknown to them, engage them in conversation, and end up mating with them in less than 24 hours. This is a skill I cannot fathom.

As for myself, I am hopelessly shy around attractive women whom I do not know. I find it virtually impossible to speak to a woman to whom I am attracted without a proper introduction. I feel as though no matter what my opening line is, I will come off like a desperate dweeb looking for sex. Even if I'm not. (Looking for sex – I have no control over the dweeb part.)

Fortunately for me, I have a different skill and that is the ability to lure attractive women into making the first move. I have no idea how I do it, but all of the relationships I've been in have started because someone I found attractive talked to me first. Perhaps there are women who find the desperate-dweeb-too-shy-to-talk-to-women look irresistible. Whatever it is, thank the gods of physical love that I have it. Without it, I'd still be a virgin.

I'm not saying I have any control over this ability or could make it happen every weekend if I wanted. I am not the sort of person who cruises for sex, so I've never tested the limits. When in a relationship, I am loyal and not tempted to stray and I like being in a committed relationship. So there have only been a few times in my post-high school life when I was "available" and looking to meet someone.

Women, on the other hand, don't have this problem. If a woman wants sex, all she has to do is leave the house. It's a simple matter of anthropology and evolution: men will do it with any willing female, women get to choose. (Gross generalization, yes, but mostly true.)

I hope this frank discussion of the human sex act has been informative and educational. And remember guys, when a woman says "moo," she means it. Unless she winks, lifts up her blouse and shows you her udders.

CONTEST TOMORROW, Parrot Today

Bizarro is brought to you today by Great Band Names.

If I was a shape-shifter, like "Sam" on HBO's Trueblood, I would choose to be a bird every time. Imagine being able to fly under your own power. Holy cow(bird). Of course, I'd want to be a bird with my mind, not a bird's mind. Not because birds don't have good minds (they have perfect minds for life as a bird) but I would want to protect myself from cats, hunters, traffic, the pet trade, all the sort of things birds fall prey to.

But shape-shifters have that ability, at least on Trueblood. They maintain their own consciousness, but take on the shape of a different animal for however long they want, then switch back. So cool.

The only downside to shape-shifting is the nudity. You lose your clothes when you change into another species – you could hardly imagine a pigeon flying around New York City wearing jeans and a hoodie – so when you change back, you're still naked. And you have to be careful where you leave your stuff when you first "shift" because your wallet will still be in your pants or whatever. It would be a drag to come back from your flight to find all of your stuff missing. How do you get back into your house without your keys? Naked people trying to jimmy windows are often frowned upon by neighbors.

Back to the things birds fall prey to, few things break my heart the way the sight of a bird in a cage does. I admire people who rescue parrots from "pet owners" and try to give them the best life possible given that their natural life has been ruined by captivity already, but I am dead set against people who buy birds to keep as pets. If I were a bird, I'd rather be set free than live the rest of my life in someone's kitchen window, regardless of how long I could survive in that environment. I'm always tempted to release birds I see in hotel lobbies and pet stores. Big parrots wouldn't have much of a chance, their wings are typically clipped anyway, but little finches and songbirds would probably be fine just flitting around the city eating what they can. When winter comes, they might not make it, but I can't help but believe that's a better life than prison. Some cities do, in fact, have large populations of escaped birds. Good for them.

Before my animal rights friends come down on me for encouraging behavior that might endanger innocent birds, let me say I'm just thinking out loud. I don't really know what is best for a given species in a given climate. I just know what I'd want. I'd be the Patrick Henry of birds: Give me liberty or give me death. But not in a creepy, backwoods middle America way with stockpiles of guns and a fear of socialized medicine.









I'll post a cartoon contest tomorrow at 6pm NYC time. Watch for it, play it, enjoy it. First person to post the correct answers in the comment section wins!

Zombie Minimum Daily Dietary Requirements

Bizarro is brought to you today by King of the Brain-Eating Zombies.

Followers of this blog may know that I have had a relationship with a teenage boy for a few years now. But before you go "tweeting" that, let me say that this relationship is not illicit, illegal or inappropriate in any way. He's just a funny kid who sends me cartoon ideas from time to time. His name is Victor or Vance or something, I can never remember, and he just started college somewhere on the East Coast. Or maybe Canada.

I've posted about him before and even included some pics of him and his family visiting Bizarro International Headquarters in Brooklyn earlier this year.

That's a long-winded introduction to my next point, which is that Victor suggested to me the idea of a zombie who craved bran instead of brains and I made this cartoon out of it. Thanks, Victor (Vernon?), good luck in school. (Or was it jail?)

In other news, a reader of Bizarro saw this cartoon in the newspaper (an outdated mode of communication from the 1900s which facilitates the dissemination of facts to the public) and sent me the following haiku:

The vegan zombie
Cares not for sweet grey matter
They cry out for "grains"

It's funny because it's true. Or at least I assume it is true. I'm a vegan but not a zombie, so I can only be half sure.

Until tomorrow...live each day as though it is your last (but you don't know it is your last, otherwise you might spend all your money, punch your boss in the neck, and admit to your wife that you banged her sister in the pool house at that party that one time.)