Contest TODAY!!

Come back today at 7pm NYC (Eastern) Time to compete in this week's contest. First three people to solve the puzzle win BIZARRO TRADING CARDS!!! Yessssssss!

Here's one of the previous contests, to acquaint you with the process. Happy puzzling!

*"BIG" in this context, means small.

Belief

Bizarro is brought to you today by Other Bigfoot Disguises.

I have a few friends and acquaintances who believe in Bigfoot, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call it, so it's been on my mind lately and I've done more Bigfoot cartoons per calendar year than I normally would. Just for the record, I'm open minded but generally not a believer of things that can't be proven and I'm not a believer in Bigfoot. But how fun would it be to see Bigfoot in a pair of big, whapping clown shoes? Pretty dang fun, I reckon.

Some people say that not believing in things that cannot be proven takes the mystery out of life. But I think there is more mystery and wonder in the actual scientific nature of the universe than I could ever hold in my nano-noggin, so I don't feel the need to believe in magic, monsters, fairies, "signs", wizards, angels, gods, devils, spirits, or the like. It just doesn't interest me. If it interests you, go for it. Whatever works.

Tell your friends about tomorrow's contest, it's more fun the more people that play. Look how happy these previous winners are.

Contest Thursday, Ham Today

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hockey Moms.

I've never thought of myself as much of a caricaturist, but the pig character does look an awful lot like Steve Schirripa as his character, Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri on The Sopranos, who, more than likely, loves his prosciutto. I don't blame him, when I was still eating animals, I loved prosciutto, too. In fact, my parents used to run an Italian deli and sold some of the most delicious home recipes. Yum. As most of my readers know, I don't eat that way anymore.

I mostly did this cartoon because I thought the name Tony "Chest Pain" Proscuitto was funny.

I think I'll do another contest this week, for those of you who have been asking for it. Look for it on Thursday at 7pm NYC time. Here's a link to a past contest so you'll know what this is about if you're new to the game. Same basic rules and prizes.

Until tomorrow, be wonderful in your own little wonderland.

That Twilight Manga Adaptation

I don't have much to add about the upcoming Twilight manga adaptation, but one thing jumped out at me when I saw these preview pages in Entertainment Weekly:



Poor balloon placement.

IIRC, this is artist Young Kim's first comics work, and in these pages it shows. She neglected to leave enough room for the word balloons, and as such we get the semi-transparent balloons so as to try to show the art underneath, or balloons covering up half of a character's head. For example, panel 3 of the second page above, where you can barely see Bella's face squeezed between the two balloons.

No offense to Kim, whose character designs I really like and who seems to do a decent job with the storytelling. But an editor really needed to point out the balloon placement deal on the layouts...

How Naked Was He?

(To make the cartoon really bigger, click on the Whippoorwill's wattle.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Citizens Against Public Nudity.

This was a fun cartoon to draw with all its little bird people. I like to draw birds and some of my favorites are featured in the header panel for this cartoon, shown below. Some papers use these panels, some use thinner ones like this or this, some use none, depends on how comics section is laid out.

Some of the birds at left are tattooed on my right forearm, as a matter of fact. Looky here.

I got a few emails last week from people who didn't understand this cartoon. The joke hinges on the expression, "naked as a Jaybird." I'm not sure if people who didn't get the joke just didn't make the connection or had simply never heard the expression. Where I come from, people say this sort of thing all the time.

That's all for today, go forth this week and conquer your kingdom with sparkles.

Graphic Narrative Discussion Group

Our Graphic Narrative Discussion Group met last week and selected our readings for 2010. They are:

February 18, 2010: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

An award-winning and highly-praised graphic novel that intertwines three separate narratives to explore the Chinese-American experience and issues of myth and race.

April 15, 2010: Clover by CLAMP (omnibus edition)

A shoujo (‘girls comics’) futurist cyber-fantasy by the preeminent Japanese mangaka collective.

June 17, 2010: Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

This artistic & narrative tour de force about an architect who re-examines his life was one of the best reviewed graphic novels of 2009.

August 19, 2010: Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou

Parallel stories set in the 19th century and the modern day examine Bertrand Russell’s foundational quest in mathematics.

October 21, 2010: Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke & The Hunter: A Parker Novel by Richard Stark

Cooke’s highly-praised adaptation of Stark’s seminal noir novel gives us the opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in adapting a work from one medium to another. (We will read and discuss both the original prose novel and the graphic adaptation.)

December 16, 2010: Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak

Adaptations of literary classics produced by mashing-up comic styles and characters with the source material, e.g. The Little Lulu characters in a retelling of The Scarlet Letter.

Our Website at http://webservices.itcs.umich.edu/mediawiki/gndiscuss/ has been updated with the 2010 schedule.

Monkey Covers

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

This monkey on the cover of Pyton Spesial #1 (1992) is a crazed comics-making machine!


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