Yes, there will be a Free Comic Book Month event this year

Despite the fact that posting has been rather sparse here over the past few months, I do plan on running Free Comic Book Month again this May. This will be the Fifth annual FCBM here at YACB. Look for the official announcement early next week...

Science!!

Bizarro is brought to you today by The March of Progress.

As I predicted, I got some mail about this cartoon from readers who are against embryonic stem cell research. I also got a couple from people who informed me that stem cell research was not illegal, only the use of embryonic stem cells, and something else about government funding, but I zoned out.

I know every detail of every cartoon does not stand up to academic scrutiny, it isn't meant to. It's a cartoon.

Folks that wrote were of the opinion that embryonic stem cells are humans and should be afforded legal protection. I don't happen to share that view, but that's not really what this cartoon is about. It's actually just a flimsy, current-events excuse to use the phrase "boltless neck." I thought that was funny.

Of course, we may disagree on that point, too.

Tragedy + Time = Humor

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Woodland Creatures.

I submitted this cartoon many weeks ago, long before the Somali pirate story hit the news, but the cartoon appeared in papers a day or so after the story was making headlines. Some readers wondered why I was tying the banking crisis and the hostage situation together.

A reader wrote to me recently and suggested a good caption for this cartoon would have been "pirates are giving pirates a bad name." I chuckled and told him I would have used it if I were an editorial cartoonist and could get a cartoon into the paper the day after I drew it. As it is, there is a six week delay between my turning in a cartoon and its appearance in papers, so I can't be that current.

That delay makes it a little nerve wracking if I do a cartoon about an earthquake or a plane crash. More than one syndicated cartoonist has erroneously been accused of making fun of a tragedy the day after it happened. I've been the victim of this kind of coincidence a couple of times in my career, the most ludicrous of which was once when I drew a cartoon about a bicycle pizza delivery guy standing at the Pearly Gates with a pair of twisted handlebars in his hand. St. Pete says something like, "Sorry about that bus, but I was really craving a pizza."

The day after it appeared in papers, I got some angry letters from people in a certain city who thought I was making fun of a prominent cyclist in their community who had been killed by a car the day before my cartoon printed.

Whaddyagonnado?

Sport Differential

(Click image to enlarge)

Today's Bizarro is sponsored by Immature Fathers.

I'm a sports fan but I don't follow golf. First, it isn't a sport it's a game, not that that matters, and second, I find it unacceptably dull. Like watching people play chess or Scrabble. Sure, lots of people enjoy golf on TV and that's fine. I suspect most of them probably play it, though, which makes any sport more fun to watch because you have firsthand knowledge of how difficult what the participants are doing really is. Which is why I enjoy watching those films about Jason Bourne.

A recent exception to this rule is that I've come to enjoy watching some basketball on TV, even though I've not played it since I was twelve. It's not that I don't like it, but with the exception of countries like Guatemala and Japan, I'm not what most people would call "tall," so I am at a natural disadvantage in a game about height. In fact, it isn't even the same game. To have firsthand knowledge of the skill level necessary to play basketball as those in the NBA do, I would have to use a ball the size of a grapefruit and play on a court half the size of standard ones with the hoop mounted at the top of the average door frame. Just doesn't seem as hard.

Conversely, if the NBA dudes were playing with a beach ball on a court the size of a hockey rink and the hoop were mounted at the top of the average highway light pole, they'd have some idea of what basketball is for me.

So here is Tiger Woods playing putt putt. His mighty swing is taking out other patrons right and left. Stop, Tiger, stop! It's all about putting! No driving allowed!

Silly, silly, Tiger.

Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Watchmen
2 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
3 (+1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
4 (-1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
5 (-). Star Trek: Countdown TPB *
6 (N). A Drifting Life
7 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3: Century #1 *
8 (+1). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
9 (-1). Batman: The Killing Joke
10 (-4). V for Vendetta
11 (+30). Dark Tower: Treachery *
12 (N). Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster
13 (-6). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
14 (+7). Batman: R.I.P.
15 (+4). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4) *
16 (+9). The Joker
17 (+22). Batman: Year One
18 (-8). Blueberry Girl
19 (N). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
20 (-9). Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 3
21 (-8). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
22 (-8). Ignorance, Thy Name Is Bucky: A Get Fuzzy Collection
23 (+21). All Star Superman, Vol. 2
24 (-7). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
25 (+5). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
26 (-14). The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle
27 (-). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
28 (N). Batman: The Long Halloween
29 (+7). Bone: One Volume Edition
30 (N). The Beats: A Graphic History
31 (-8). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
32 (-4). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
33 (N). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
34 (-19). The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 39th Edition
35 (-13). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
36 (N). Crown of Horns (Bone, Vol. 9)
37 (N). From Hell
38 (N). The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
39 (-1). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
40 (N). The Saturday Evening Pearls: A Pearls Before Swine Collection
41 (-12). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972
42 (N). Dark Tower: The Long Road Home (Exclusive Amazon.com Cover)
43 (N). The Marvel Encyclopedia
44 (-1). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
45 (-21). Watchmen (Absolute Edition)
46 (N). Y: The Last Man Vol. 4: Safeword
47 (-12). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
48 (N). Angel: After The Fall Volume 1
49 (N). The DC Comics Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition
50 (N). The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 3


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


Commentary:

* It was an extremely volatile week on the Amazon list this week, with many titles taking huge jumps up or down the charts, and a greater number than usual titles either debuting or returning.

* The highest debut is Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life, which was positively reviewed earlier in the week by the New York Times. It ranked even higher earlier in the week, and as late as yesterday evening it was charting above a couple of the Wimpy Kid volumes.

* Also debuting high is the pre-order for the first issue of Moore & O'Neill's new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (You might think that this would also cause a resurgence of the previous LXG volumes, but you'd be wrong.)

* Aside from A Drifting Life, no other manga volumes make the list, with even Naruto completely disappearing.

* One of the biggest gainers is Marvel's Dark Tower, with the pre-order for the new collection climbing way up, and the first collection making a return appearance.

American Genius

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Peace of Mind.

I got an email about this cartoon from a reader who wanted to inform me that "just because something is a conspiracy theory does not mean their aren't real conspiracies." Even though this person went on to identify himself as one of those meatheads who believes Obama was not born in the U.S. and is turning the country socialist, you can't argue with logic like that.

Along the same line of thinking, just because a TV network tells you it is a "news" channel, does not mean it is reporting facts. And just because that network claims to be "fair and balanced," does not mean it isn't demonstrably controlled by a political party attempting to control your behavior, take your money, and poison your environment. And just because that network's comical tag line is "we report, you decide," does not mean that you have much choice in what you decide based on their reporting. Sort of like the magician who says "pick any card," but always manages to get you to pick the card he wants you to have.

So thanks to the reader for alerting me to the existence of "real" conspiracies and for reminding me that there are always a handful of angry, uneducated, bigoted nitwits you can convince to waves signs and throw teabags while complaining about rising taxes when their own rates have been untouched for 16 years and are about to go down.

Fortunately for the rest of us, their numbers are lower at the moment and relatively few people showed up for the comical Fox-Network-GOP-instigated-and-promoted "grass roots" tax revolt last Wednesday. I have little faith that their numbers will continue to dwindle, but for the time being, the desperation of the GOP and its "news" network is humorous to watch, anyway.


DISCLAIMER: This blog is not intended to insult educated conservatives who mourn the loss of their party to the neo-cons.

Childhood Memory

Bizarro is brought to you today by Happy Lucky Freaky Phone Call.

When I was a child in the 1960s, my imaginary friend was a long-haired, pot-smoking, peace-loving hippie dude who played bass for Janis Joplin and whom I called, "Yip."

Yip would hang out in my room, smoking, playing his guitar and recounting stories from various bars and hotels from his latest tour. My parents were cool about it, though they would occasionally complain about the noise and the "oddly sweet smelling smoke" that always filled my room. They couldn't see Yip, of course, but they humored me and pretended they could. When I told them about the time he got so drunk that he fell out of the tour bus window outside of Indianapolis and the whole crew, driver included, were so wasted that nobody noticed until they had gotten to Cleveland, they laughed appropriately. In later years, they confessed to pressing their ears against my bedroom door and marveling at how good I was at switching voices during our conversations.

Then one day it all came to an end when they entered my room without knocking and Yip didn't have time to hide. Mom fainted, Dad called the police and I never saw Yip again.

I guess we all have to say goodbye to childhood sometime.