Here in the Future

Today's Bizarro is sponsored by My New TV Series.

It is difficult for me to completely grasp, but Americans under 30-or-so cannot remember a time before computers were ubiquitous. I'm not all that old, as you can see from this dashing recent photo of me, but I never even saw a desktop computer in person until I was an adult and didn't learn to use one until I was in my thirties. Even hand-held calculators were rare and expensive when I was in high school. I learned to type on a typewriter like the one in this cartoon and the closest thing to spell-check that existed was my mom and a pocket dictionary.

I may sound like an old geezer but the speed at which technology has moved in the past 30 years makes a person's head spin. There is nothing to indicate that it will slow down in the near future, but at the current exponential rate that it is moving, sometime next month we'll have personal robots that respond to voice commands, be teleporting from coast to coast using only our thoughts, and the Internet will appear as a 3-D hologram hovering in front of us.

More to the point of this cartoon, computers actually did get too small to use. The most advanced cell phones of a only a couple years ago did everything the early desktop computers did but the keypads were so small and inefficient you might as well have been using Morse code and an abacus. Thank god for the ingenious new designs by Apple (again) and the new generation of phone screens and keyboards. How did we get by without them?

I know that when I describe the way my family and I lived when I was a kid, I sound like Abraham Lincoln reading by candlelight in a log cabin. But seriously, compared to now, we were practically barbarians squatting in tents in the wilderness. If you're currently a high school kid, chances are that by the time you're my age your description of today's Internet, email, texting, digital TV, etcetera, will seem like cavemen banging on logs with sticks. Get used to it.

That's if modern human civilization still exists by then, which is very unlikely, so never mind.

Sofa Self-Censure

Bizarro is brought to you today by Godzilla Goes Swimming.

Here we have a simple turn of a phrase, the sort I've always found fun. To me, any sofa long enough to accommodate me is a sofa bed. In fact, I'd much rather sleep on a sofa than a fold-out bed inside a sofa. The sofa cushion is invariably more comfortable than the thin mattress covering the wirey armature of the bed.

I know there are exceptions to this. Like futon sofa/beds, which are often more comfortable to sleep on as a futon opened up on the floor than they are as a thing to sit on, and modern sofas with platforms and big cushions or something. There are probably more wacky sofa bed inventions but I'm bored even thinking about it and I'm guessing you're nodding off reading about it, so let's move on to the next subject. It's just as boring, but at least it is a change of pace.

When I sent this cartoon in, it had a grievous typo. The woman was saying "Does is fold out?" Me editor caught it, corrected it on the black and white version, sent me an email reminding me to correct it on my version before I colored it, and sent it out to papers. That's our routine.

A handful of papers and all websites run Bizarro in color every day. The color files are sent electronically (as opposed to the b/w cartoons being mailed in hard copy, the old-fashioned way) so I have a little more time to finish them. I color the cartoons the week after they have been sent in and edited for b/w clients and that's when I usually correct mistakes or typos that my editor has found.

In this case, I was out of town when I got the email and forgot to refer to it when I got back and colored the cartoons. So the moronic version ran in papers and web sites all over America, making me look foolish. I hate it when that happens.

In a cartoon later that same week, a word was changed because of previous problems with it but again, I forgot to change it on the color version. That mistake could have gotten me into trouble with client editors all over North America. Everybody loves a cliffhanger so I'll post that cartoon later this week and 'splain.

Land That Fashion Forgot

(To see a more huge version of this cartoon, click the right bug's left antenna.)

Bizarro today is brought to you in part by a grant from the Alliance of Unpopular Choir Members.

Here is a little drawing for the combover wearers among us, especially those with bugs in their hair. I wondered when I drew this if enough people would get that the scene was taking place on someone's head. Bizarro appears in other countries, and also I wonder if the term will translate sufficiently there. But I did it anyway, because that's the kind of crazy devil-may-care action-adventure type guy I am. It's also just another of the many reasons I'm not a millionaire. Not mainstream enough.

To help the image along, I added this title panel to the cartoon, but many newspapers don't use this header panel when they print my Sunday cartoon (because of space constraints), so it probably wasn't much help.

I've never understood the combover's appeal. How many people honestly think it fools others into thinking they still have hair there? How many think it is not fooling anyone, but looks better than bald skin? How many are actually fooling themselves into thinking there is still hair there?

I'm not a guy with a skull full of fur myself, so I am not without sympathy for the naked pated. Personally, I loathe both combovers and the look of very thin hair, so I've committed to shaving my head if my remaining hair gets thin enough that it looks unappealing to me. I have no idea how I'll look bald, my head may be the shape of a Silly Putty egg, but I think it is better than the alternatives. A Toupee, of course, is utterly out of the question, except in the context of Halloween. As are those places that sew a rug to your head.

On another note, thanks for all the responses yesterday concerning the super hero book vs. the cowboy book. So far, super heroes are winning. All of this, of course, hinges on whether a publisher is interested in either idea. Sometimes they just steer you in some other random direction and you're out of luck.

Lynching, Polling

Bizarro is brought to you today by Cowboys of the Future.

I like this cartoon, but it isn't the way I originally wrote it. My first version, which appears below, was considered too violent, especially at a time when talk of "lynching" has been used in very offensive ways against our president. So I changed the image in a way that removed the potentially offending imagery but kept the joke.

I'm glad I changed it. It's one thing to do a joke about a controversial subject like gay marriage and risk angering homophobics and bigots. That's a calculated risk I'm often willing to take. But to do a joke about one thing and risk upsetting people for reasons that have nothing to do with the message of the cartoon is quite another. In this economic climate, as newspapers are looking for ways to save money, we cartoonists cannot afford to cause unnecessary trouble for editors.

Here's a question to you, the blog reader. Or, the "bloader," as I like to call you. Since my book of Bizarro pirate cartoons sold moderately well (and given the New Depression, that's great!) I've been thinking of doing a book of either Bizarro western cartoons, or super hero cartoons. Which do you think would sell better? Would you be more likely to buy a small book of Bizarro cartoons about cowboys, indians, Old West stuff, or one about super heroes?

Friday Night Fights: Olive Oyl vs. Popeye

From Popeye #135 (1976). Writer & artist uncredited. (click pic for larger)

A Love Tap? Never laugh at a lady!

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 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5 (-). Watchmen (hardcover)
6 (+5). Batman RIP *
7 (-1). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe *
8 (+1). Batman: The Killing Joke
9 (-2). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
10 (-). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
11 (+2). V for Vendetta
12 (-). The Joker
13 (+5). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
14 (+35). Watchmen (Absolute Edition)
15 (+22). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
16 (+12). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
17 (+16). All Star Superman, Vol. 2 *
18 (+12). Batman: Year One
19 (+5). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
20 (+3). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
21 (-2). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
22 (-8). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
23 (+18). Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind
24 (+7). The Hidden Temple (Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 5) *
25 (-). Naruto, Volume 35
26 (-2). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
27 (-10). The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA
28 (-13). Crown Of Horns (Bone)
29 (-9). Secret Invasion
30 (-2). Naruto, Volume 34
31 (-9). Naruto, Volume 36
32 (-3). The Complete Persepolis
33 (-1). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
34 (N). Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 21: War of the Symbiotes *
35 (-27). Barack Obama Amazing Spider-Man #583 Flag Cover Variant Third Printing
36 (-20). The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
37 (N). The Dangerous Alphabet
38 (N). Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 6
39 (N). The Complete Far Side 1980-1994
40 (-5). The Arrival
41 (+7). Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert
42 (N). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
43 (-9). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
44 (N). Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel
45 (-5). The Marvel Encyclopedia
46 (N). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
47 (N). The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
48 (-3). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 1)
49 (N). The Legend of Zelda , Volume 3: Majora's Mask
50 (N). Dark Tower: The Long Road Home (Exclusive Amazon.com Cover)

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


Commentary:

* While pre-orders on the fifth Scott Pilgrim volume remain strong, interest in the previous volumes has waned after the surge last week.

* Sales on Watchmen are probably keeping all of the rest of DC Comics afloat. Not only do the paperback & hardcover remain in the top five, but the expensive absolute edition surged up from 49 to 14.

* DC also have strong pre-order sales with their two high-profile Grant Morrison projects: Batman RIP & All-Star Superman.

* Interest in the Obama Spider-Man third-party market is officially over. Only the 3rd printing still shows up in the top fifty; it plummets from 8 down to 35 and goes for as little as $3.79

* The highest debut belongs to a pre-order for the latest Ultimate Spider-Man volume. In fact, with the exception of the aforementioned Obama-Spidey comic back issue, Brian Michael Bendis is responsible for all of Marvel's charting graphic novels. (The Marvel Encyclopedia is actually a Dorling Kindersly publication.)

* For no discernable reason there's a mini surge of interest in strip collections, with The Complete Calvin & Hobbes jumping way up (I think there was a modest price drop), and a Dick Tracy volume and the old Complete Far Side both debuting on the chart.

Heroes and Villains

Bizarro is brought to you today by Tiny Pediatricians.

This idea came while watching a football game and inking cartoons one afternoon. The female sideline reporter (almost all sideline reporters are female these days, someone must have passed a law) was interviewing a player and he was much taller than she, of course. But it suddenly occurred to me that she was holding the microphone up over her head to reach his face. Try it yourself right now. Imagine interviewing someone so much bigger than you that you have to hold the mic up over your head, as though pointing it at a light fixture on the ceiling.

And keep in mind these are not skinny, tall guys. These guys are HUGE. Their hands are bigger than your head. When you see someone that big in person, it almost seems as though they are a different species.

If only American football had been popular in Frankenstein's time, the monster could have worn a uniform and he would have been adored, instead of chased down by a mob and killed.

I think we've all learned an important lesson today.