A Resounding Yes

Bizarro is brought to you today by Affordable Toupees.

People often ask me if I draw cartoons based on my own experiences. The answer is a resounding, "YES!"

If I had a nickel for every time a woodland creature had warned me about another woodland creature, I'd have $953.72. (Three-fifths of one of the woodland creatures was missing, so I didn't take a full nickel.)

But seriously, folks, illegal drugs are no laughing matter. Many are potentially harmful to your physical and/or mental health, some are even as bad as prescription drugs. So do what the talking squirrel does when he is offered illicit substances of recreational repute: Squeak, bite, and run!

This has been a public service announcement from the United States Department of Career Guidance.

NOTE: Want to look as suave as the dude in this cartoon? Click here for the official Bizarro Icon Line of high-quality schwag!*

*A large percentage of all profits goes to debt collectors. Makes excellent gifts.

Phoebe Gloeckner - Thursday

Artist/Cartoonist/Professor Phoebe Gloeckner will be the featured speaker at the Penny Stamps Lecture Series this Thursday, 5pm at the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor.

If like me you are unable to attend (I have a prior commitment at the Serious Games Expo), the Penny Stamps lectures are available via podcast a few days after they occur.

Huck It

Bizarro is brought to you today by The N Word.

The first time I read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," it was at the behest of a cranky and unforgiving woman named Amanda Benchwhite, my tenth grade English teacher. There was some controversy at the time about this book being used in public schools because of the recurrence of a little thing we now call the "N-word."

But as much as I disliked this particular teacher, she did manage to use this book as a terrific discussion tool about the history of racism in the U.S. This was particularly challenging because our class was roughly half black and half white, so there was no shortage of disparate opinions and potential for conflict. And yet, we came through with a better understanding of each other as a result of discussing the "elephant in the room," instead of pretending it didn't exist.

No, seriously, we had a kid as big as an elephant in that class. I'm not talking about a guy who was six-feet-tall and overweight, I'm talking about a guy who was 12-feet-tall on all fours and weighed several tons. The janitor had to follow him around with a big shovel and a bag of sawdust just to deal with his waste. As if this wasn't distracting enough, he had an incredibly long nose through which he would occasionally let out a deafening trumpeting sound. Oh yes, and it was prehensile. He could pick things up with his nose! No sh*t.

Try reading Twain and grappling with racial tension with that kind of thing going on in the middle of the room. Nigga, please!

New Library Comics: September 2009

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection in September:


Action comics. no. 446 / New York, N.Y. : Detective Comics, Inc., 1938-1988

Adams, Neal, 1941- Megalith no. 1 / New York : Continuity Publishing, 1993-1994

Adams, Scott, 1957- Fugitive from the cubicle police / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews and McMeel, c1996

Adams, Scott, 1957- It's obvious you won't survive by your wits alone / Kansas City : Andrews and McMeel, c1995

Adams, Scott, 1957- Journey to Cubeville / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews McMeel Pub., c1998

Adams, Scott, 1957- Seven years of highly defective people : Scott Adams' guided tour of the evolution of Dilbert / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews McMeel, c1997

Amaya, Shane L. Horns of Hattin / Santa Barbara, CA : Terra Major, 2004

Aragonés, Sergio, 1937- Bat Lash. Guns and roses / New York, NY : DC Comics, c2008

Barr, Mike W. Mantra no. 1 / Westlake Village, Calif. : Malibu Comics Entertainment, 1993-1995

The brave and the bold. nos. 123, 132 / Sparta, Ill. : National Comics Publications, 1955-1983

Cannon, Zander. The replacement god no. 4 / San Jose, CA : Amaze Ink, 1995-

Cosby, Andrew. Enigma cipher / Los Angeles, CA : Boom! Studios, 2008

Farr, Naunerle C. The hunchback of Notre Dame / New York : Marvel Comics Group, 1976

Gerber, Steve, 1947-2008. Foolkiller no. 7 / New York, NY : Marvel Comics, 1990-1991

Gotsubo, Masaru. Samurai champloo vols. 1-2 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2005-

Hedgecock, David. A different pace / San Diego, Calif. : Ape Entertainment, c2004

Hugleikur Dagsson, 1977- Is this some kind of joke? / London : Michael Joseph, 2008

Kōga, Yun, 1965- Earthian no. 2 / [S.l.] : Blu, 2005-

McCay, Winsor. Dream of the rarebit fiend : the Saturdays / West Carrollton, Ohio : Checker Book Pub. Group, c2006

Miller, Frank, 1957- Give me liberty : an American dream no. 1 / Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 1990-1991

Mireault, Bernie. The jam no. 7 / San Jose, CA : Slave Labor Graphics, 1989-1997

Nicholson, Jeff. Lost laughter no. 3 / Chico, CA : Bad Habit, c1993-1994

Perez, Omaha. Bodhisattva / Redondo Beach, CA : OPP/Omaha Perez Productions, c2003

Peters, Matt. Rex Steele : Nazi smasher / New York : Monkeysuit Press, 2004

Rosenberg, Jonathan. Infinite typewriters / New York : Del Rey/Ballantine Books, c2009.

Sibylline, 1978- First time / New York : Eurotica, 2009

Tinkle digest. nos. 2,4,6,8,10,12,30,32,34,37,45,48,52,82,94-98,103-104,107-110,114,116,118,120,126,128,130,132,134,136-140,150,156-157,167,170,172,178-182,209 / Bombay : H.G. Mirchandani for India Book House, [1992?]-

Wood, Brian, 1972- The tourist / Berkeley, Calif. : Image Comics, 2006

Wood, Teri S. Wandering star nos. 8, 10-11, 19 / El Centro, Calif. : Pen & Ink Comics, 1993-1997


As always, this listing is available as an RSS Feed.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Bizarro is brought to you today by Impatience.

Here is a cartoon about a really big cigarette.

In other news, the weather in NYC was not hideously cold and wet yesterday, so I went for a ride on my motorcycle. My biggest complaint about where I live is that the winters are too cold, too long, and take all of the fun out of this, one of my three favorite activities. (The other two being playing my guitar and making the sexy time with the womens.)

Besides the three mentioned above, another fun thing to do is to open an envelope and find you have somehow received a huge sum of money, tax-free and no strings attached. This has never happened to me, but I can easily imagine the fun that would be associated with it.

Something much less fun – in fact, the opposite of fun – would be to open an envelope and find that you owe a large sum of money and there is no way out of it. That has happened to me on a few occasions and it sucks. In fact, the sucking can be heard for miles around.

I must get back to my inking now. Today I am drawing cartoons for the week of December 7, one of which includes a platypus.

Until my next entry, please enjoy this picture of Jason Trachtenburg, of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, one of my favorite strange stage acts. I took this photo with my phone in NYC on Thursday night. Even though Jason looks like he's walking, he was actually posing. He is a very quirky cat and a new friend of mine.

Monkey Covers

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

Detective Chimp laments his own passing on Steve Scott & Wayne Faucher's cover to Shadowpact #5 (2006).

(Standard disclaimer about not-dead talking chimpanzees not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Moon Water

(For a clear and big look at this cartoon, click the bear's invisible spaceship.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by the NRA.

It may seem an odd coincidence that this cartoon about a bear not finding salmon on the moon appeared in papers just days before NASA announced they had found water on the moon. But in truth, I knew about the water on the moon ahead of time because I put it there. CHNW and I get water delivered to our place in Brooklyn and they brought too much one month, cluttering up the hallway just outside our door. So I stored a bunch of them on the moon to get them out of the way. I probably shouldn't have done it, but I figured no one ever uses the moon anyway, who's going to know?

I wonder how long it will be before they discover a mountain bike and some old record albums on the moon?