Kryptonite Kid

(Hint: For a bigger, less blurry glimpse at the intricate glories of the above cartoon, point your cursor [little black arrow on your screen] to any part of the image, then push the button on your mouse [the plastic device that controls the arrow.])

Bizarro is made possible today by Ugly Wedding Dresses.

I've always liked to think about heroes and the unpublished details of their lives before they were famous. What was Clark Kent like as a child? How do you control a kid with superhuman strength in the throes of the Terrible Twos? It is common for children of this age to throw a spoon across the room. How did Ma and Pa Kent avoid getting impaled?

As a Catholic kid, I wondered about Jesus's childhood. Did he have friends his age, or was he the nerdy, overly philosophical kid that nobody wanted to play with? Did he ever get mad at another kid for taking his toy, strike him dead, then bring him back to life before anyone found out?

At what age did Mickey Mouse start wearing those big, dumb shoes? Once he was rich and famous he could afford to be isolated from the riffraff, but before that, was he never chased by a cat? You certainly would want better shoes if you were.

I think a Showtime or HBO series about Superman as a small child would be great. The Kents try to deal with a toddler with superhuman strength, the ability to fly, x-ray vision (there goes their sex life), all without letting any of their friends, family or local townfolk find out about his powers. Year by year, as the actor who plays the toddler grows up, we follow his various struggles with typical childhood trauma through the filter of his tremendous powers. The show isn't about him weilding justice or solving crimes, just coping without flipping out and throwing his schoolmates into the next county when they make fun of his new shoes. Or getting caught looking through the walls of the girl's locker room.

If someone does come up with that series, they'd better be ready to prove they documented it before the date of this blog, because I will come after them with a team of Kryptonite-weilding lawyers.

Monkey Covers

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

I've heard of maving a monkey on your back, but being on the back of a monkey is a whole different story on Andi Watson's cover to Skeleton Key #22 (1997).

(Standard disclaimer about giant gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Boats, Bottles, and Taters

Bizarro is brought to you today by LowRider Boats.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by ships in a bottle. When I finally found out how this is achieved, I was even more fascinated. I know the "canoe in a bottle" is a dry joke, to say the least, but it's the sort of thing I'd actually like to have in my home. I wouldn't have an actual ship in a bottle, but a canoe in a bottle would be just about right.

Someone once gave me a bottle of pear brandy with a full-size pear in the bottle. The way they create them is simple, but I still find it a strange idea. I'd love to see one of the trees they come from. Who first thought of this? Someone should do this with a watermelon, allowing the melon to fill the bottle entirely, then add vodka to preserve it. I would laugh at that.


As an added bonus today, here is the header panel for a Sunday Bizarro that will run in late March. I just created it yesterday, it will go with a Mr. Potato Head joke. The kid in the photo is me at about age 2.

Shameless Friend Promotion: Sara Ryan on The Erika Moen Show

Here's pal & author extraordinaire Sara Ryan being interviewed by cartoonist Erika Moen on The Erika Moen Show:



Part 1:



Online TV Shows by Ustream



Part 2:



Live video by Ustream





(Following on from her husband Steve Lieber's appearance last week)

Amazon Top 50

Here are the Top 50 Graphic Novels on Amazon this afternoon. All the previous caveats apply.


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
2 (-). Watchmen
3 (+1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (-1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5 (+7). Watchmen (hardcover)
6 (+36). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe *
7 (-1). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
8 (-3). Barack Obama Amazing Spider-Man #583 Flag Cover Variant Third Printing
9 (-2). Batman: The Killing Joke
10 (-). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
11 (+37). Batman: R.I.P. *
12 (-3). The Joker
13 (+10). V for Vendetta
14 (-). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
15 (-). Crown Of Horns (Bone)
16 (+27). The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
17 (N). The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA
18 (-1). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
19 (-8). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
20 (+4). Secret Invasion
21 (+13). Naruto, Volume 37
22 (+9). Naruto, Volume 36
23 (+5). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
24 (-2). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
25 (+4). Naruto, Volume 35
26 (N). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
27 (-8). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
28 (N). Naruto, Volume 34
29 (-13). The Complete Persepolis
30 (-4). Batman: Year One
31 (N). The Hidden Temple (Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 5) *
32 (-11). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
33 (N). All Star Superman, Vol. 2 *
34 (+15). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
35 (+4). The Arrival
36 (-16). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
37 (N). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (v. 3)
38 (-30). Amazing Spider-Man #583 2nd Printing Yellow Cover Obama Variant
39 (N). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World (v. 2)
40 (-10). The Marvel Encyclopedia
41 (N). Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind
42 (-6). Coraline Graphic Novel
43 (-16). Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: Prodigal Son
44 (N). New Avengers, Vol. 9 (Secret Invasion, Book 2)
45 (-7). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 1)
46 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
47 (-1). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
48 (N). Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert
49 (-2). Watchmen (Absolute Edition)
50 (N). From Hell

Items with asterisks (*) are pre-order items.

Commentary:

* Huge upward movement on Scott Pilgrim, with the latest (still in pre-order) rocketing up thirty-six places, and vols 1-3 also showing up in the rankings.

* Batman RIP, also as a pre-order, shoots up the charts as well. Not exactly sure why the sudden movement, although it fits in with the general Bat-mania on the Amazon charts.

* Naruto volumes come out of pre-order and jump up too. It appears that Viz released four volumes simultaneously to the bookstore market (which I don't think they did via Diamond).

* The shine seems to be wearing off for the Spider-Obama comics in the third-party market. With five printings now available, it must be the case that everyone who wants a copy probably has one. How long until they're selling for $1 on eBay?

* The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA debuts surprisingly high on the list; perhaps the result of writer Mark Schultz appearing on NPR's Science Friday last week?

Useful Children

Bizarro is brought to you today by This Century's Village People.

Kids. What're you gonna do with 'em?

I have to modestly admit I really like this gag. The picture alone makes me smile as the house frau attempts to change channels by squeezing the baby. I also really like the dad's T-shirt, which is one of my Bizarro aliens. Did you know you can purchase this very shirt, or any of my other "secret symbols" on a shirt here? Now you do.

A while back, I published a Sunday cartoon a small part of which was the design below. A couple of people asked me if I'd be releasing that design on T-shirts. (Side note: I hate that term "releasing" used in that way. It comes from the record industry, I think, as they try to drum up excitement about a new album. It makes it sound as though they have a product in a cage somewhere and are going to unleash it on the public. Whoa, Katy bar the door.) So yes, I will be offering this design on shirts soon. Keep an eye (or both, so it doesn't give you a headache) on this blog for info on how/when to order. I have high hopes of selling more than a dozen! I shoot for the moon, that's how I roll.

Comedy and Cake

Bizarro is brought to you today by Oprah.

My mysterious e-friend, Derek, has been sending me some fun ideas lately, and here's another one. Though I get pun suggestions from readers daily and turn down the overwhelming majority of them, sometimes there is one that when combined with a fun pic is worthwhile. (In my opinion. Some commentators on this blog will doubtless disagree.)

I also do cartoons for Parade Magazine and I had originally submitted this one to them. They wanted to use it but didn't get back to me quickly enough and I used it for Bizarro instead because of an looming deadline.

It's been a while since I've posted any of my Parade cartoons, so here are a few to point your eyeballs at.

This is as close to an animal rights message as I'll likely ever get into Parade Magazine. And, of course, only a person who is already familiar with the movement would see it as such.

Even when I was still consuming dairy products, I wondered why I found bovine milk acceptable when I knew full well that a glass of dog milk, or even an anonymous human's milk would turn my stomach. Human milk would certainly be better suited to our bodies – designed specifically for it, in fact – but I suspect a rack (pun intended) of commercially packaged human milk from anonymous donors would not sell well in the local grocery store.

I thought this was a fun gag. Unlike most of my work, it is a simple concept without a paragraph or more of dialogue and a tag line at the bottom. Most of the other cartoonists in Parade opt for the borderless image with the spoken line printed in quotes beneath the picture. I still prefer to box it in and letter the captions myself. Maybe I'm just a control freak.






And here is what my Parade cartoons look like in the paper, wedged between "Howard Huge" and an ad about foot fungus or something. As you can see, Parade is one of those magazines that takes the artist's signature off and prints it in the margin instead. I've never cared for that style, but what are you going to do? A person making a living as a cartoonist is luckier than the average lottery winner, so you don't complain about where or how you're being published.

The other half of that equation is that I wouldn't have a career without you, the reader. That may sound corny, but that's only because it is corny. But it's still true. Thanks for reading.

P.S. The links to cake pics that are featured today came from this amazingly amusing blog:
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/