EEEEEEEEK!

Destroying the Lives of Children

Bizarro is brought to you today by Animal Husbandry.

Last week my cartoon was drawing attacks from all quarters. Yesterday's post was a bout a plagiarism accusation, today's is about my mistreatment of preschool icons. Below is the email I received, in its entirety:

I usually do not take the time to write someone about a comic strip. But this time I could not just ignore it.

I take EXTREME OFFENSE at your comic today. I am surprised Sesame Street hasn't talked to you yet. (How does she know they haven't?)
The Birds (Capitalized?) in the your comic strip today are very obviously Big Bird and Foghorn Leghorn.

You are making these characters out to be bullies. That is NOT what these characters stand for.
They are good characters, and I feel you are beating up on their images by using them.

I have two younger children that love to read the comics everyday with me (age 7 & 10).
When they saw what you had drawn, I'm not sure they will never want to see your comic strip again.
They were both extremely offended (as was I) and at the ages they are they knew that Big Bird would
NEVER do anything like that!!!!!! (Then what is the problem?)

It is NOT FUNNY to bully someone's image like that, to infer that they would do anything like that.
(I believe she means "insinuate." "Inferring" is what she's doing.)

To pick on an image that has been out in this world doing nothing but good for over 40 years is SHAMEFUL!!!
You should be ashamed of yourself for picking on something as PURE as Big Bird!

Sincerely,
Name withheld because I'm embarrassed for her.

I responded politely to her note, as I invariably do, and told her that everyone knows that Big Bird would never act this way and that is what makes it funny. I suggested that if she explained that to her children they would no longer be upset by the cartoon and learn a little something about the way humor works, too. I got no response.

Oh, the tremendous weight of social responsibility that a cartoonist bears.

Amazon Top 50

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


1 (+4). Kick-Ass
2 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
3 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
4 (-1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
5 (-1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
6 (-). Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1
7 (+4). Batman and Robin, Vol. 1: Batman Reborn *
8 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5 *
9 (+1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
10 (-3). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
11 (+8). The Losers: Book One (Vols. 1 & 2)
12 (+16). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
13 (+1). The Boys Volume 6 SC
14 (+3). Yotsuba&!, Vol. 8 *
15 (-3). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour *
16 (-1). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
17 (+4). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
18 (-2). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
19 (+5). Scott Pilgrim, Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
20 (+14). Instructions *
21 (+9). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
22 (+18). Hellboy Volume 9: The Wild Hunt
23 (-1). Dark Tower: The Fall of Gilead
24 (+13). Irredeemable Vol 2
25 (-). Watchmen
26 (+18). The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel *
27 (-14). 50,000,000 Pearls Fans Can't Be Wrong: A Pearls Before Swine Collection
28 (-2). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
29 (+12). Batman: The Killing Joke
30 (+19). Batman: Year One
31 (N). Wilson *
32 (-23). The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 (Vol. 13) *
33 (+6). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
34 (+4). Captain America: Reborn *
35 (R). Marvel Encyclopedia
36 (R). Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3,856 Story Possibilities
37 (+10). V for Vendetta
38 (+4). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
39 (+11). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5)
40 (-8). Rough Justice: The DC Comics Sketches of Alex Ross
41 (-18). Warriors: Ravenpaw's Path #2: A Clan in Need
42 (-11). Asterios Polyp
43 (R). FoxTrot Sundaes: A FoxTrot Collection
44 (R). Wanted
45 (R). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
46 (R). Wolverine: Old Man Logan
47 (N). Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels *
48 (R). Blankets
49 (R). Mercy Thompson: Homecoming
50 (-32). Fables Vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover



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

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* And there you have it: On the day of the movie release, Kick-Ass hits #1 on the comics charts (and #54 overall). Amazon has it as 'shipping in 2 to 4 weeks,' which means they've sold out of their on-hand stock at this point. Hopefully Marvel are printing more copies so that Diamond can get a few more bucks off the property before they lose their Marvel bookstore distribution.

* The highest debut this week belongs to the pre-order for Daniel Clowes new GN, Wilson.

* Once again the only manga this week is Yotsuba&!, which moves up three more notches.

* Scott Pilgrim volumes rebound a bit, exhibiting staying power that should stick around until the movie opens in August.

* A lot of large swings on the chart this week, both up and down, and many returning volumes on the chart as well.

Thieves, Cowards and Clones

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Amateur Crime Fighters.

After this cartoon appeared in the paper last week, I received two emails. One was from a polite person wondering if I had seen a Far Side cartoon from the late 20th century with a similar joke, and one from an impolite person accusing me outright of stealing the old Far Side cartoon and thinking no one would notice.

As I politely explained to both, widely-read cartoonists like me don't steal from even more widely-read cartoonists like Larson. Why? Because I have an I.Q. above that of a houseplant. You could never hope to get away with it, and what is more embarrassing that being caught stealing?

In truth, this kind of thing happens to professional cartoonists all of the time. There are hundreds or thousands of us searching our brains every single day for jokes, a twist on fairy tales or popular culture or recent movies, a way to turn a common phrase into an unexpected meaning. It is only natural that more than one person comes up with the same idea from time to time. The cartoon above is not all that unique, really. You take the common phrase, "let sleeping dogs lie" and think of a new way to illustrate it, this is pretty much what you get. The sort of things a dog might lie about are even likely to be similar. It's just the way the human mind works.

Professional cartoonists will pretty much all concur on this. We've all unintentionally published gags similar to our colleagues, and all had others publish ones very similar to ours. It just goes with the job, none of us waste much time pointing fingers because it's only a matter of time before we are the seemingly guilty party.

As a person who has judged caption contests before, I can tell you from experience that this happens to non-cartoonists, as well. If you publish a given picture and ask people to caption it, no matter how many entries you get, around three quarters will be in the same couple of veins of thought. None of us is as unique as we'd like to think.

My apologies for not having memorized more Far Side cartoons back in the last century. If I had, I would not have published this one. But as far as I can tell, no harm was done. I appreciate the two readers who wrote to call this to my attention, although I appreciate the polite reader far more. One of the downsides of the Internet is that its anonymity often fills the cowardly with false courage and incivility. (Hence the need to moderate comments.)

Toddler Shock Collars

Bizarro is brought to you today by Future Families of the Past.

I used to have children a long time ago (now I have adults), before it became socially acceptable to put them on a leash. As weird as it looks, I could have used this device and would have in a heartbeat.

Toddlers are energetic drunks with no sense of their own mortality, so if you don't have them tethered, there is nothing to keep them from darting out into traffic after a shiny object. I tried tying a water ski rope around mine's waist but this raised too many eyebrows and questions from mall security guards. I moved to ankle weights, just to slow them down, but that only developed their leg muscles, making them even faster when the weights were removed. Drugging them seemed harsh, braiding their hair and hanging onto the end of it seemed cruel, as did a shock collar. There was just no good answer in those days.

But modern science has brought us toddler leashes and all is well. Now if we could just get parents to carry pooper scoopers and clean up after their kids, we'd have a truly civilized society.

Brain Goo

Bizarro is brought to you today by Dubious Parades.

I remember visiting a museum years ago – can't remember which one or where, which is one of the problems of traveling a lot – wherein there was a display describing prehistoric surgery. For reals.

Apparently, somebody (anthropologists? archeologists? utility workers?) found ancient skeletons from cave man times that have pretty clear evidence that their skull had been cut into then sealed again while they were alive. I suppose scientific curiosity is a possible motive but that aside, I have to wonder what they were trying to cure. How aberrant can a caveman's behavior be that his friends decide they might be able to fix it by digging around in his head? If he was killing people for no reason, seems more logical that they'd just kill him. If he was hallucinating, they'd likely chalk it up to a spiritual experience. Same with epilepsy or whatever. Maybe he was the first person to start talking and they thought he was crazy. It's interesting that they even suspected that fiddling with the goo inside your head might change something about your life.

If anyone knows more about this, let me know. I don't have time to research it this week, I'm trying to get ahead on deadlines so I can take a little vacation. Even if you just have a theory, leave it in the comments. I find this kind of thing pretty fascinating.

Adult Humor

(Click it now. See it bigger.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Inflatable Baby.

Finding someone to take your kids off your hands even for just a few hours is always difficult. Rick has found a simple and creative solution that rids him of the little tykes for good. And he's made some lovely lady very happy, to boot. The children are a little bewildered at the moment, but kids adjust and it is easy to imagine that life anywhere would be better than it had been with Rick.

Another cartoon with a happy ending for everyone. You're welcome.

*All of today's links came from awkwardfamilyphotos.com, one of the best sites in the world.