Friday Night Fights: Batman vs. The Hulk

From Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk (DC Special Series v. 5 #27). Art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & Dick Giordano. Story by Len Wein. Colors by Glynis Wein. Letters by John Costanza.

DC vs. Marvel? It's a Free For All!

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 (+2). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
4 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
5 (R). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
6 (-3). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
7 (-). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
8 (+1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
9 (-3). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
10 (-2). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
11 (+1). The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future
12 (+10). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books *
13 (-3). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
14 (+5). Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill
15 (-1). Walking Dead Volume 12
16 (-5). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
17 (-2). The Cloud Searchers (Amulet)
18 (+5). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight *
19 (+1). Watchmen
20 (-7). Kick-Ass
21 (+3). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
22 (-4). American Born Chinese (paperback)
23 (+10). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
24 (+18). Troublemaker Book 1: Alex Barnaby Series 3
25 (R). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
26 (+4). Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows
27 (-11). Blackest Night
28 (-11). Lost at Sea
29 (+3). The Walking Dead, Book 2
30 (+6). Batman: The Killing Joke
31 (-). Green Lantern: Blackest Night
32 (-3). V for Vendetta
33 (-8). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
34 (-7). The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1975-1978 (Vol. 13-14) *
35 (R). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
35 (N). The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14) *
36 (R). Dork Diaries 2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl
37 (R). Warriors: Ravenpaw's Path #3: The Heart of a Warrior
38 (N). Empowered Volume 6 *
39 (R). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
40 (N). Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale *
41 (-2). Hetalia Axis Powers Volume 1 *
42 (R). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
43 (R). Batman: Hush
44 (R). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
45 (-19). The Walking Dead, Book 1
46 (-5). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
47 (-9). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
48 (-11). The Walking Dead Book 5
49 (-2). Batman: Year One
50 (-29). The Arrival


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:

* The Wimpy Kid book 5 retains the top spot, followed by five Scott Pilgrim volumes. SP vol. 4 returns to the graphic novel category, while vol. 5 remains mysteriously absent.

* On the overall list, Wimpy Kid moves up to #10, while the Scott Pilgrim volumes slip to #75, #83, #89, #100 & #107. Persepolis is at #352, while the last book in the top 50 is at #4,457 on the overall list. (This is again a rise from last week's #5,185.)

* Only two new books this week: the latest volume of Empowered and a Serenity OGN, both in pre-order.

Ant Vamps

Bizarro is brought to you today by Wrong Babysitter.

This is the second ant cartoon I've done in the past couple of weeks. A friend of mine said, "Do an ant cartoon," and I started thinking about it. Maybe I'll come up with more, dunno.

While researching pictures of ants online, I saw these ones with the big scary jaws and that's what gave me the idea of adding vampire fangs. Not very scary.


Today's dusty mummy cartoon from the archive is from 1998. For those of you who are familiar with the laws of perspective, you'll enjoy this view from the advanced principles course.

Finally, I'm on my way to the San Francisco Bay Area for a couple of appearances (I'll be at the Schulz Museum Saturday from 1pm to 4:30pm) so I won't be posting again until next Tuesday, Sept 14. Hope to see you then.

By the way, I'll be doing a short comedy set and singing an original song at a dandy variety show in NYC on Sunday, Sept 19th. If you're in the area, drop by, golldernit. Famed cartoonist from The New Yorker, Matthew Diffee, will be backing me up on banjo. For reals.

The Steam Powered Hour
Sept 19th, 7 pm
at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe
236 East 3rd St.
between Ave B and C
212-505-8183

Tickets haven't gone on sale yet, I'll announce it again next week with a link.
Have a great weekend.


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Complaining, Flying, Jumping

Bizarro is brought to you today by Baby Proofing.

The first cartoon I've posted today is one of my favorites in a long time and is my cartoon answer to the sort of folks who write scathing letters to me about something they found offensive about one of my cartoons. Regular readers of this blog have seen a few of the kookier bits of hate mail I've received, so you know what I'm talking about.

Recently I've begun receiving mail from people who are upset that I put the "K2" into my cartoons. I've been doing this for around 15 years, it represents my two daughters, whose names both begin with K (Krapuzar and Krelspeth) but apparently there is some kind of recreational drug or something that goes by K2 now and people think I'm promoting it. Like I would do that. I haven't bothered to look this thing up so I have no idea what their talking about. Is it illegal? Is it actually dangerous like chrystal meth or is the supposed danger a corporate-inspired myth as with marijuana? For all I know you can buy it at a health food store but it's cutting into pharmaceutical profits so Fox News is waging a propaganda war against it. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

This next cartoon is about the constantly growing list of things airlines are charging for. Soon there will be a two-drink minimum. Where will it end? And when will someone invent a way to get a large airplane off the ground without using fossil fuels? There could easily be a time in the near future when there are no airlines because of fuel difficulties. Weird.

From the archives, here is one of my long-time favorites that was used on the cover of one of my early books. An embarrassing first day in Heaven.

CHNW and I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane a couple of years ago. It's tons of fun and we didn't die. Unless the afterlife looks just like our normal lives.

As some of you know, I don't actually believe in any kind of afterlife but it's such an irresistible premise for cartoons that I use it a lot.

Apps n' Such

(To view this cartoon large, poke it with your pointer thing)

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%)