Guest Cartoonist

I normally don't write about Bizarro cartoons until they are a week old, but I want to address the "guest cartoonist" situation going on this week in newspapers a across the globe.

For a syndicated cartoonist responsible for 365 new cartoons per year, for as long as his/her career lasts, there are no vacations. For us to have time off, we have to write twice as many jokes for a given amount of time, draw, color, and format twice as many images, then rush out the door. When we get home, we race to catch up again because we used all our available ideas to get out the door, but now x amount of new ones are due again. It's a white-hot hell.

Some cartoonists will publish reruns, but unless your feature is widely considered indispensable, like Doonesbury or Peanuts, editors don't like to publish reruns and will frequently sub your feature out for someone else's, either permanently or until you get back to work. The market is so competitive these days that a smart cartoonist doesn't dare let that happen. Some syndication companies just ban the practice entirely.

Recently, some artists have gone to the "guest artist" system, which is a great alternative. I get my much-needed time off, another artist gets some exposure, the readers get a glimpse of a new artist they might otherwise have never come across.

Francesco Marciuliano, whom I chose as my sub this week, is a good friend and a brilliant and prolific humorist. The guy writes Sally Forth (I know, it's not typically at the top of a Bizarro reader's list, but read it a few times and see if he doesn't do an amazing job of breathing life into what is essentially a formula family strip) an Emmy-winning children's show for cable (can't remember the name of it – Binky and Floofloo? Invisible Playmate in My Pants? How Drunk is Uncle Rick?), as well as a clever blog, brilliantly funny essays, and a fair amount of stand-up comedy. My own personal favorite of Ces' myriad accomplishments, however, is his online comic, Medium Large. All of this, and he's as quiet and humble as a church mouse. And almost as furry.

Hope you like what Ces (pronounced: chez) did for this week. I'll be commenting on them daily next week. Here's one that didn't make the cut. (must be over 16 to read this one)

Be groovy, be well, B vitamins.

Piercing Limits

(click to enlargerate)

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Back At Headquarters. "It's good to be home!"

Just got back from the San Diego Comic Con and a couple of parties in L.A. I'll blog about those later.

For now, here is a dandy little cartoon ditty from Sunday a week ago. I like this idea and am happy with the drawing, but I'm wishing now that I'd made the car keys on his ear more obvious, or drawn them differently somehow. They could get lost in some of the newspapers where they print Bizarro small.

Which brings up a pet peeve: why do so many papers put Garfield all huge and monumental on the front page of their Sunday pages, then relegate cartoons like mine, with elaborate art and relatively complex ideas (that's not saying much for newspaper comics) to smaller bits of real estate deeper in the section? Garfield is simply drawn, commercially produced by a committee of trained surrogates, and read primarily by small children who have yet to develop critical skills capable of discerning much beyond the texture of their SpahettiOs. If I ran a newspaper comics section, I'd feature art and commentary by artists who aren't phoning in their work from their corporate jet. But that's just me.

On another subject, I'm a guy with tatts (six) and piercings (one in each ear) and who appreciates any attempt at individuality. I will admit, however, that those whose number of piercings rival the number of their skin pores, disturb me just a bit. I'm particularly disturbed by people who have something the size of an SUV's hubcaps crammed into a flaccid loop of flesh at the bottom of their ear. I'm a little squeamish about the human body in general and deliberate deformities creep me out a bit. Tongue piercings creep me out even more. It just looks like it would hurt.

Tattoos hurt and I have no aversion to those, so I guess I'm just being a baby. We all have our reservations and limits, I guess.

New Library Comics: Week of July 21, 2008

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection last week:


Angst : the best of norwegian comics vol. 1 / Oslo, Norway : Jippi Comics : No Comprendo Press, 2007-

Arnold, Monroe. Reagan's raiders no. 1 / Brooklyn, N.Y. : Solson Publications, c1986-

Azuma, Kiyohiko. Azumanga Daioh omnibus / Houston, Tex. : ADV Manga ; 2007.

Bagge, Peter. Apocalypse nerd / Milwaukie, Or. : Dark Horse, 2008.

Baillie, Liz. My brain hurts vol. 1 / Bloomington, Ind. : Microcosm Pub, 2007-

Best erotic comics 2008 / San Francisco, Calif. : Last Gasp ; London : Turnaround [distributor], 2007.

Biff bam pow! no. 1 / San Jose, CA : Amaze Ink/SLG Publishing, p2007-

Bray, Glenn. The original art of Basil Wolverton : from the collection of Glenn Bray / San Francisco, Calif. : Last Gasp ; Santa Ana : Grand Central Press, 2007.

Chackowicz, Howard, 1969- Howie : action comix / Montréal : Conundrum Press, c2008.

Dembicki, Carol. Mr. Big / [United States] : Little Foot Publishing, [2008]

Discovered : sequential art anthology 2007 / Savannah, Ga. : Savannah College of Art and Design ; 2007.

Drechsler, Debbie. Daddy's girl : comics / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, c2008.

Dupuy, 1960- Haunted / Montréal : Drawn & Quarterly ; New York : Distributed in the USA by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008.

El Rassi, Toufic. Arab in America : a true story of growing up in America / San Francisco, Calif. : Last Gasp, 2007.

Farr, Michael, 1953- The adventures of Hergé, creator of Tintin / San Francisco : Last Gasp of San Francisco, c2007.

Gaiman, Neil. Signal to noise / Milwaukie, Or. : Dark Horse, 2007, c1989.

Gipi, 1963- Questa è la stanza / Bologna : Coconino Press, c2007.

Goulart, Ron, 1933- Good girl art / New Castle, Pa. : Hermes, c2007.

Gumby collected vol. 1 / Walnut Creek, Calif. : Wildcard Ink, 2007-

Hernandez, Jaime, 1959- The education of Hopey Glass / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, 2008.

Hotwire comix. vol. 1 / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, c2006-

Irving, Christopher. Peter Bagge / Raleigh, NC : TwoMorrows, c2007.

Kimjin. Kingdom of the winds vol. 1 / Glendale, Calif. : Netcomics, c2008-

Koyama-Richard, Brigitte. One thousand years of manga / Paris : Flammarion, c2007.

Levin, Bob. Most outrageous : the trials and trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics, 2008.

Mahfood, Jim. Stupid Comics vol. 1 (Phoenix Edition) / Berkeley, Calif. : Image Comics, 2008-

Martinson, Lars. Tōnoharu. part one / Minneapolis : Pliant Press 2008

Mauldin, Bill, 1921-2003. Willie & Joe : the WWII years / Seattle, Wash. : Fantagraphics Books, c2008.

McCarthy, Tom, 1969 May 22- Tintin and the secret of literature / London : Granta, 2006.

Myhre, Lise. Nemi / London : Titan, 2007.

Orbit. no. 1 / Forestville, Calif. : Eclipse Books, c1990-

Schrag, Ariel. Awkward and Definition : the high school comic chronicles of Ariel Schrag. / New York : Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Snejbjerg, Peter. Marlene / San Jose, Calif. : Slave Labor Graphics, 2006.

Takemiya, Keiko, 1950- Andromeda stories vol. 1 / New York : Vertical, c2007-

Ware, Chris, 1967- Thanksgiving : five prints from The New Yorker / Chicago : Acme Novelty, 2007

Wolverton, Basil. Agony and ecstasy / New York : Pure Imagination, c2007.

Yokoyama, Yuichi. New engineering / Brooklyn, NY : PictureBox, c2007.



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Obsessive Humor

Bizarro is brought to you today by Censorship International. "Hey! You can't do that!"

As I mentioned yesterday, I accidentally left my current cartoons at home so I'm using stuff that is on my laptop, hence the date of this cartoon.

This is one that never ran in the papers because it was feared that people with OCD would rise up against newspaper editors all across the land and cause trouble for me. One might be tempted to say, "Don't give in, Dan. To hell with them if they can't take a joke." But editors don't like losing a day of work answering angry emails, letters and phone calls and may decide to replace Bizarro with a less controversial clone. That would be bad for me. So this isn't really censorship as much as it is my personal editor advising me against it and me agreeing.

I experienced a bit of this last week when I ran a cartoon about dyslexia. I didn't lose any papers over it (that I know of), but some folks complained. I have OCD and dyslexia in my family (and a touch of OCD myself) so I feel I have the right to poke a little fun at me and mine. Humor is an age-old human device for getting through tough times and situations, so I am not as sensitive about it as many people apparently are. God knows that vegans get regularly grilled in humor venues of all kinds, but I take it with grain of salt (or a salt lick) and laugh at myself and my kind. My folks taught me that. Laughing at ridicule and teasing takes the fun out of it for the other guy, and the sting out of it for you.

The blog is good for this kind of cartoon, which will likely never see wider publication. Glad I had this opportunity to share it with you, hope no one has taken time off from checking the door locks and stove handles to get offended.

Jerky

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by My Faulty Brain.

Hello from Sunny San Diego, my BizarroBlogBuddies. Just before I left my estate in Brooklyn yesterday, I loaded all the appropriate cartoons that I would need to continue posting on this blog onto a little dealy-bobber stick so I could bring them with me. Then I left the dealy-bobber stick in my computer at home. What I have learned from this experience is that dealy-bobber sticks, no matter how well-designed, do not work at a distance of 2400 miles.

So I'm posting this older cartoon, which happens to be one of my faves from last year, because it was already on my laptop. 

Okay, kids, I'm off to the Comic Con to see strange people in stranger outfits. Next week I'll post a blog with my own pics from this year's show and a ridiculous running comentary.

I hope you like this panel and are not going to be a jerk about it.

I'm not at SDCC...

I'm unable to go to the San Diego ComicCon, but I'll be following along with Bully the Stuffed Bull as he photo-blogs his way through the con. If you cannot be there as well, I recommend Bully's fun posts as the next best thing to being there.

Comic Con

Don't come by my house this weekend looking for me, I'll be in San Diego at the world's biggest comics convention. If you've never been, you should go. And no need to take recreational drugs ahead of time, the tens of thousands of attendees are beyond the strangest mushroom trip anyone's ever experienced.

If you're going, come by the NCS (National Cartoonists Society) booth and say hello. I'll be selling and signing books, trading cards, prints, and some of my old T-shirts, the ones that are too stained to wear or don't fit me anymore since I've been taking steroids. Since I'm not a spoiled professional athlete with way more money than couth, autographs and pictures with me are completely free. I will be charging for sketches, however, but they're well worth it since I draw not with ink, but with my own blood from a self-inflicted bullet wound in my leg. You don't get that kind of dedication from your average cartoonist.

Don't come to my house this weekend looking to rob it, either. CHNW will be there and she's currently fostering two rescued pit bulls. They love her and they won't like you.