End of Minx All Nighter bummer

For me, the biggest bummer of the end of Minx is that David Hahn's All Nighter won't make it out the door before Minx folds. I've been a fan of Hahn since his Private Beach days, so I was really looking forward to this. Hahn says that he's unsure whether it will show up under a different DC imprint, or revert back to him.

I think it would be quite funny if All Nighter ends up being published somewhere else (HarperCollins? Slave Labor?) and outsells the other Minx titles as a result!

Amazing Grace

Bizarro was made possible today by Cats, Firemen, Birds, Ink, Computers, and Language.

Most of my cartoons just come from some intangible place in my head, a black box in the rafters of my mind's garage, a vault buried deep beneath my soul's grain silo. But this cartoon is one of those rare ones that is entirely autobiographical.

When I was a child, I had a black and white cat that was accidentally blinded in a lab accident. I had a chemistry set I enjoyed playing with and although I had been warned of mixing chemicals haphazardly, I was an intrepid child and frequently pushed the limits of the physical world. One day, I poured a bottle marked, "Do Not Mix This With Acid" into a bottle marked, "Acid." I knew as soon as I rotated my wrist that I'd made a terrible mistake.

Before I could even shield my face, the newly mixed fluids exploded like bitter enemies. But just as the searing fluid would have hit me in the face, my cat leapt in front of me and took the scalding blow himself. He lived, but lost both of his eyes.

For years he lived with me, completely blind, and would feel his way around the house and the surrounding yards. Just as sighted cats will often do, he would occasionally climb to the top of a tree and have trouble coming down. I routinely would climb up to rescue him, it seemed the least I could do for a friend who had sacrificed his own eyesight for mine.

One day, when I was around 12, he was trapped at the top of the enormous pecan tree in our front yard as black storm clouds and flashes of lightening tumbled toward us. I just barely heard his plaintiff cries over the growing wind and prepared to climb the tree to save him. As I stepped gingerly from one branch to another, I soothed him with my voice. "I'm coming, Steve. Hang on. It's okay."

I was only ten-or-so feet off the ground when my foot became wedged in the crotch of a huge tree branch. Though I struggled with the fury of a Norse god, I could not pull it free. The storm approached, the wind got louder, the lightening closer. I glanced up at my terrified, blind cat, perhaps 65 feet in the air, clinging desperately to a branch as the wispy fingers of the tree swayed violently to and fro. "Hang on, Steve!" I shouted over the now gale-force winds. "Don't let go!"

I turned my attention once again to my shoe, pinned in the fork of the branch like a debutante against the back seat of a car, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something unbelievable. It was Steve, of course, being lowered gently by a squadron of birds. The look on his face was one of relief, gratitude, and astonishment.

I, too, was relieved and astonished to see him safe on the ground and heading for the house, so much so that I had forgotten that a huge storm was bearing down on me while I was still trapped ten feet off the ground.

Just then, as though the day had not already been amazing enough, along came a millionaire CEO of a crooked financial firm with a saw and a ladder. He immediately began sawing the branch away near my foot, until I was free, then helped me down the ladder. Before I could even thank him, he returned from whence he came without asking for any compensation whatsoever.

In a single day, I saw birds rescue a cat from a tree and a ruthless multi-millionaire perform an altruistic act. I have never seen either since, but having witnessed it once restored my faith in the goodness of this world in a way that lasted well over a week.

Baked Babe

(If you want to see this image bigger, why not click it?)

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Ritual Mutilation Services of Omaha.

This gag came from my friend and occasional writing partner, Phil Witte. He's a super-dandy dude with fun ideas and I like using his stuff. In this case, I completely forgot to give him the typical by-line under my signature like I have in the past. Props and apologies to Phil are in order.

I don't mean to be critical of piercings, I have two myself (an earring in each ear), and people have been doing this sort of thing all over the world for millennia. The extent to which many modern-day urban white kids do it is a little alarming, which is undoubtedly part of the point.

I, too, enjoyed being outrageous as a youngster. I died my hair blue, cut it short when everyone else in Oklahoma had it long, wore two earrings when doing so could result in fistmarks about your face and torso by Tulsa's numerous homophobics. I once even threaded one of those red Twizzlers up one nostril and out the other, with an end sticking out of each nasal port, and wore it that way for a few days until I got tired of the taste dripping down my throat. I haven't been able to stand Twizzlers since–in my nose or any other orifice.

So I'm tolerant of people who want to stand out in odd ways. Some just enjoy being different for their own unique reasons, some crave being the center of attention, some, like I did when I was a kid (and still do to some extent), like to challenge people's prejudices.

And some just like the taste of Twizzlers.

Children of Men (and Women)

This cartoon is brought to you by Life Waste Management Corporation.

The cartoon I normally would have posted today would have been from a week ago, Saturday, Sept 20. But I think it's a dull one so I nabbed this older panel from '04 that I like better.

I wonder if Lassie followed Timmy through life and made sure that all her efforts saving him from wells, burning barns, and Soviet submarines, was worth it. What if Timmy grew up to be a serial killer? Or an ad executive in charge of convincing voters that Sarah Palin is competent to run the country if/when McCain croaks? Wouldn't Lassie wish to high heaven that she'd just kept her yap shut and let him be captured by the Russians or turned to charcoal in that barn?

At what point do parents of awful people regret the effort they put into their kid's survival? I think most parents convince themselves that their kid is doing well and deserving of their pride, but how does Dick Cheney's mom pull off that trick? I'm guessing she's dead by now, but if she were still alive, I mean.

Personally, I have very high standards for my two daughters. I've given them until their 30th birthdays to make the world a better place for their having been in it or it's curtains.

Friday Night Fights: Triplicate Girl vs. Lucifer Seven

From Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (1981). Written by E. Nelson Bridwell & Paul Kupperberg, drawn by Jim Janes & Frank Chiaramonte.

Ladies Night? OOOFF!

Shameless Friend Promotion: Better Zombies Through Physics

The secret is secret no longer: pal Jim Ottaviani & his pal Sean Bieri have a Webcomic on Tor.com: "Better Zombies Through Physics."

While Jim is best known for his non-Fiction comics about science & scientists, this is I believe his first comic fiction.

"Join us for chills, thrills, and pulse-pounding scientific breakthroughs as we embark on a tour of the Quantum Zombie, Inc. facility, courtesy of a guy who bears a striking resemblance to famed scientist and cat-lover Erwin Schrödinger. Hijinks, hilarity, and an abundance of felines await you in Tor.com’s newest comic strip."

Caveology and Marriage

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by fire. "It's all about proximity."

I was taught as a child that bragging was unacceptable ("Look, Mommy, I got an A on my arithmetic!" "Oh, you're Einstein now, are you? Let's see how you do with our tax returns!") so only because you are my closest friends in the world, will I admit that I am proud of this joke. I love the word play in it, and its surreal time-travel nature. Are they in prehistoric times but she knows what a condo is, or are they living like cave people in the present? I prefer the latter explanation.

My own wife used to date very wealthy men, not because she was after their money but because she happened to meet them in the circles in which she ran. She could have married a millionaire many times, but chose a thousandaire instead. Condoman/Caveman – another autobiographical joke.

And because I'm behind on posts lately, here's another bonus cartoon. I am proud of this one, as well, and it also has a bit of an autobiographical nature to it.

Having been through two marriages, I've come to learn that all relationships have expiration dates. When you first get together, you never know if the expiry date will be six months or sixty years. Just another fact of life at the crossroads of existence and reality. Live, learn, suffer, grow, nap, repeat.

Like many people, as I get older I find it increasingly difficult to take weddings seriously. Mostly, I just go for the free food and booze at the reception.

My advice to youngsters: commitment ceremonies followed by a party beat a legal marriage any day – unless you have financial reasons like taxes, health insurance, or you plan to breed and don't trust your spouse to support them, there is no good reason to get legally married. In general, do all you can to keep lawyers out of your bedroom. You'll be glad you did.