Apps n' Such

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Bizarro is brought to you today by The Thumbs of Giants.

I have one of these high-falutin' iPhones, but it isn't the latest one. I think it's about two versions back. Maybe the iPhone 3 or 4, I'm not sure. I like all the apps but I can't say that I really make the best use of them. I'm not much of a techno-geek, so I don't really know how much is available or have the time to fool with it. Coming up with new ones for this cartoon was a lot of fun, however.

If you have an iPhone, the most important thing to remember is that Bizarro has an app that feeds your phone a new cartoon every day, the same one that's in newspapers worldwide. It also has a year's worth of searchable archive and links to my website and this blog. All this for about $2 or $3 a year. What? A year's worth of creativity and sweat for the price of a single beer in a bar? Yes, it's absurd, I know.

I don't control the business decisions about such things but I'm told if the iPhone app does well, they'll expand to other platforms like Droid.

And now to the hip-hop. I know that a lot of you like the hip-hop but I can't tolerate it. Even a few seconds of it on a commercial drives me nuts. The problem is that I love music and by definition, hip-hop is non-musical. Sure, every now and then a singer chimes in with a nice chorus but the defining characteristic of it is that it is someone shouting angry rhymes to a simple electronic rhythm. Maybe it is supposed to be more about the lyrics than the presentation, but it strikes out with me on that front, too. I'm just not that interested in the sexual habits and desires of others.

I'm not as much of an old fogy as I sound here. I listen to new music all the time, usually the stuff I think they call "alternative rock," but there are a few entire categories that don't resonate with me. Another would be the modern popular country sound, whatever they call that. The stuff people like Kenny Chesney do. Also heavy metal is a problem for me. Never liked any of it, even when I was an angst-ridden teenage boy, which is the prime audience. And disco. And anything on those stations they usually bill as being "light rock" that play a lot of Eagles, and the romantic pop stations that play a lot of Christina Aguilera or whoever.

Come to think of it, it would be quicker to mention the genres I do like. I guess I'm pretty picky about music.

Monkey Covers

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

You know who likes monkeys? Collies. Don't believe me? Check out the cover to Lassie #6 (1981).



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

hi

Sorry there wasn't a strip this week. I got a BIG freelance job that's due VERY soon, but I promise to keep rolling out the strips as soon as it's completed. Until then, I want to show some fun pics of the Robot and Unicorn figurines that Tara Martin of Loffie's Randoms made for me. I'm in love with them. I like to play with them. I'm a big dork. Last week, I sent pictures of them to Kidrobot. Hopefully, I can convince someone to make them into vinyl toys. If you know of anyone with vinyl connections, please let me know [ ^_^ ]

Here's the results from last week's poll:

The lost little nut should never have...

eaten a bad mushroom (39%)
run towards a tower (39%)
fallen off Robot (21%)
bolted from bolts (17%)

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 5: The Ugly Truth *
2 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
3 (-). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
4 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
5 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
6 (+1). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
7 (-1). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
8 (-). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
9 (+3). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
10 (-). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
11 (-). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
12 (+1). The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future
13 (-1). Kick-Ass
14 (-5). Walking Dead Volume 12
15 (N). The Cloud Searchers (Amulet)
16 (-1). Blackest Night
17 (+3). Lost at Sea
18 (+14). American Born Chinese (paperback)
19 (-3). Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill
20 (-5). Watchmen
21 (+17). The Arrival
22 (N). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books *
23 (+1). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight *
24 (-3). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
25 (R). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
26 (+14). The Walking Dead, Book 1
27 (N). The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1975-1978 (Vol. 13-14) *
28 (N). Superman: Earth One *
29 (-4). V for Vendetta
30 (-7). Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows
31 (-9). Green Lantern: Blackest Night
32 (+5). The Walking Dead, Book 2
33 (-7). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
34 (-5). Garfield Potbelly of Gold: His 50th Book
35 (N). The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14) *
36 (+5). Batman: The Killing Joke
37 (-4). The Walking Dead Book 5
38 (-7). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
39 (N). Hetalia Axis Powers Volume 1 *
40 (+5). The Walking Dead, Book 3
41 (R). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
42 (-23). Troublemaker Book 1: Alex Barnaby Series 3
43 (N). Dante's Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation
44 (-14). Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
45 (R). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
46 (-18). Blankets
47 (-20). Batman: Year One
48 (R). Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft
49 (N). Bleach, Vol. 32
50 (-). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)


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:

* Things are rather boring near the top of the list, with very little change in the relative positions. Wimpy Kid 5 is up to #15 on the overall list, while the Scott Pilgrim volumes fall to #54, 58, 67 & 73. Maus I clocks in at #305, while the item at the bottom of the list is at #5,185 (up nearly 1500 from last week's #6,684).

* The highest debut this week belongs the The Cloud Searchers, the latest in Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet series. Also debuting are two box sets (one for Wimpy Kid, the other for Peanuts); the first volume of Superman: Earth One; the latest Complete Peanuts volume; a graphic adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy; and two manga volumes: Hetalia Axis Powers and Bleach.

* I always find it interesting that the two-volume Peanuts box sets tend to sell better on Amazon than do the individual volumes.

Sort of a Comedy Show!

Quick announcement:
I'm going to be appearing at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa California on Saturday afternoon, Sept 11, 2010. I'll be joining a metric buttload of other cartoonists from 1pm to 3pm for a sketch-a-thon, which means we sit behind tables and draw stuff for free or sign books or whatever, and then at 3:30pm, I'm doing a talk in the auditorium. It'll be fun, funny and FREE. Hope to see some of youse there.

P.S. Tell them you found out about it on this blog and it will be even MORE free.

WORD TO YOUR MOTHER

Cannibal Fashion

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Best 70 Bucks You'll Ever Spend.

So what's the deal with people who wear their sunglasses on the back of their head? Is this the logical extension of the backwards baseball cap? For me, both of these trends show a small glimpse of the the sort of utterly nonsensical behavior humans are uniquely known for. Baseball caps have bills on them to block the sun, so let's wear them backwards. Sunglasses were invented to protect our eyes, so let's put them on the back of our heads. Shoes exist to protect our feet, let's wear them on our hands. Or better yet, tie them to our belt and let them dangle from our waist. Non-human animals don't engage in this kind of behavior. Having a mutant, complex brain is a mixed bag, often leading us to do things we can't logically explain.

From the archives today we have a cannibal joke from 1999. There have been lots of puns about cannibals, my favorite being the clown in the giant cooking pot and a cannibal commenting that he "tastes funny." No idea who first did that, but it still makes me smile.

I've done other cannibal and primitive tribe cartoons and I've learned over the years that you have to be careful not to make them look African. This draws complaints from people who think you're advancing the racist stereotypes that black folks are more primitive than white. The best-known cannibals were mostly from the South Pacific, although it's been practiced from time to time by all kinds of cultures across the globe. The characters in my cartoon look pretty nondescript so I didn't get any angry letters.

A word of warning to any readers thinking of taking up the practice, cannibalism by any species leads to terminal dementia. Mad Cow Disease is the direct result of feeding ground-up cattle to cattle, for instance, which has been a money-saving practice of meat producers for some time. Some scientists believe that Alzheimer's Disease may be an offshoot from eating meat that has been raised that way, but it hasn't been proved.

The bottom line is, eating other people is probably okay on an occasional basis, but you wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Eating other species who ate their own is probably not a good idea, either.

Cheesus Loves Me

A reader of yesterday's blog post pointed me to this inspirational news story about "Cheesus". I hope your life is enriched by it as much as mine was.



And people ask me where I get my ideas for Bizarro.



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