It's Summertime!

Robot can't wait to show off his chest hair but Unicorn's feeling a little apprehensive. Are YOU body conscious like Unicorn? Well, get a MYTHFITS tee to wear to the beach. Hide that webcomic reading body under distractingly charming fabric! A couple more designs have been added to the t-shirt shop. Nothing says Summer more than fun new T-shirts! Click on the tee icons below...

King Kong Tennis

Bizarro is brought to you today by Larry King.

I like this Larry King Kong joke. The bottom title caption thingy is funny by itself and the humor is further advance by the reference to Skull Island, which is where Kong was captured. Not to be missed is the coffee cup which reads, "Marry Me," since Larry marries a lot of people. So there you have it – three jokes in one. Because I care about you.

Random thoughts of the week:
The USA won a World Cup game in the last minute of the match the other day and unlike my previous experiences with soccer, I found it exciting. In spite of my disparaging comments about soccer (football everywhere except the U.S.) a few days ago, I'm starting to get into the tournament. I still say the melodramatic diving is absurd (every time someone falls in apparent agony because he was tapped on the back I want to introduce him to the hockey player who, during the recent Stanley Cup Playoffs, had seven teeth knocked out by a puck, finished the game, had surgery the next day and played the next night), the officiating is laughable, and it's a bit slow for my taste, but I'm having fun with it. I like to listen to sports while I draw cartoons and look up when the commentator gets excited.

You may have heard that a truly historic tennis match happened at Wimbledon this week. Without going into how tennis is scored, the average match takes around 3 hours and around 50 games are played, often less. This one, between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, lasted 11 hours and five minutes, took three days to complete because it was called for darkness twice, incorporated 183 games and 980 points. That's more games in a single match than some players have to play to get all the way through a tournament and several different opponents to win the trophy for the entire thing. To put it into perspective, it would be like a baseball game that lasted fifty or sixty innings, like a football game that lasted 12 hours, like a soccer match that lasted 9 hours, like an election that lasted 6 weeks (oh, we had one of those), like a dumped lover eating three gallons of Haagen Dazs at one sitting.

Here is what the average score of a tennis set looks like:
Player A: 6 4 4 6 6
Player B: 3 6 6 3 4
Each number represents the number of games it took to win each of five sets. Player A wins the best of five.

Here's what this match looked like:
Isner: 6 3 6 7 70
Mahut: 4 6 7 6 68

How these guys remained standing and playing well is beyond anyone's guess. After the match, Mahut went home and cried a lot, Isner went on to lose his next match (a day later) quickly and mercifully, going home and downing three gallons of Haagen dazs.

Last random thought: We had a dandy time watching our buddy, Rhett Miller, play at the Bowery Hotel bar last night. Here's a pic of me, Rhett, CHNW, and Rich, Rhett's dentist, whom we've become friends with because he shows up at all of Rhett's gigs in NYC. And no, it was not Loud Shirt Night at Bowery Hotel last night, it was just a coincidence.












P.S. Rhett isn't naturally shiny, he had just finished playing and was sweaty. (Mmmmm...rock star sweat...)

Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Troublemaker Book 1: Alex Barnaby Series 3 *
2 (+1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
3 (+2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
4 (-2). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
5 (-1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
6 (-2). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour *
7 (+1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5 *
8 (+5). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
9 (-). Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1
10 (R). Cover Run: The DC Comics Art of Adam Hughes *
11 (-4). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
12 (-6). Kick-Ass
13 (-1). Watchmen
14 (+1). Hellboy Volume 10: The Crooked Man and Others
15 (+6). Blackest Night *
16 (-6). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
17 (+24). Blacksad
18 (R). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
19 (-5). Wednesday Comics
20 (N). Criminal, Vol. 5: The Sinners *
21 (+18). Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl (Dork Diaries)
22 (+3). Walking Dead Volume 12 *
23 (+11). V for Vendetta
24 (+6). Green Lantern: Blackest Night *
25 (-6). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
26 (N). Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic Volume 9 - Demon *
27 (+18). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
28 (-5). Instructions
29 (-18). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
30 (R). Batman R.I.P.
31 (N). Johnny The Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut
32 (-6). Naruto, Vol. 48
33 (+11). The Flash: Rebirth
34 (-10). The Walking Dead Book 5
35 (+5). Justice League of America: Cry for Justice
36 (-16). Chew Volume 2: International Flavor
37 (+11). Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps *
38 (R). Irredeemable Vol 2
39 (-12). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
40 (-24). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
41 (R). Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
42 (N). Deadpool Volume 4: Monkey Business Premiere HC *
43 (-7). Batman: The Killing Joke
44 (-7). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
45 (R). Incorruptible
46 (N). Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors
47 (-1). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
48 (-16). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
49 (-7). Dark Tower: The Fall of Gilead
50 (R). Ex Machina, Vol. 9: Ring out the Old


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:

* The top of the chart remains pretty much the same with just some rearranging of the places.

* The highest debut this week isn't until #20, with the pre-order for the latest Criminal collection. New Star Wars & Deadpool colletions pre-orders debut as well.

* Also, two Jhonen Vasquez collections, JtHM & Squee, show up on the chart, the first time since I started keeping track of these things.

* Blacksad goes from pre-order to released, and takes a large jump up the chart.

* Naruto is the lone manga to chart this week.

Big Complaints

Bizarro is brought to you by Environmental Catastrophes.

I've seen a lot of cartoons on the BP spill but I've not seen this done. My friend, Richard Cabeza, had this idea and I really like it.

I'm not going to discuss the spill much other than to say it is a heartbreaking catastrophe of our own making. An even larger catastrophe is commercial fishing in the past 100 years. Experts estimate as much as 90% of large fish are gone from he oceans as a result. The ocean is the weather engine of the planet. We screw that up, the whole thing implodes.

On a slightly different note, I found a YouTube video of a Texas guy calling Jimmy Dean Sausage to complain. It is hilarious, tragic, and says a lot about what's wrong with us. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It has a lot of what many people consider to be "bad language" so I'm only providing the link, as opposed to posting the actual video. Gotta keep my site mostly family friendly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4RNb3tt0LM

New This Week: June 23, 2010

What should you look for at the comic shop tomorrow? I'm glad you asked!


Dark Horse have Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, a collection of the superb mini-series by Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson, with the earlier short stories from the Dark Horse Book of... anthologies included. These are excellent stories about a group of pets that defend their neighborhood against the supernatural that are thrilling, emotional and a bit scary at times. The art is some of the best of Thompson's career. The miniseries made my Best of 2009 list.


Also from Dark Horse: The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, a massive (600+ pages!) collection of every Martha Washington story by Frank Miller & Dave Gibbons.


IDW serve up the second collection of Thom Zahler's wonderful Love & Capes, one of the best super-hero romantic comedies ever produced, featuring the run-up to Mark & Abby's wedding. The comics included here also made my Best of 2009 list.


Also from IDW: Fallen Angel Omnibus Vol. 0, a large collection of the entire original DC-published Fallen Angel series by Peter David & David Lopez. About half of these comics have never been collected before.


Airship Entertainment have the ninth volume of the popular Girl Genius series by Phil & Kaja Foglio, in both paperback and hardcover editions.

Tough Guy, Ugly Baby, Free Show

Bizarro is brought to you today by Tough Guys.

Writing this cartoon made me wonder how long it will be before there is a "reality" show featuring actual boxers who have to perform feats of dexterity while wearing their gloves. Like typing or tying a shoe. Could happen.
This is one of those silly cartoons that has no particular point to it, which I mentioned in a blog a few days ago.

I suppose you could say the next cartoon is in the same category. I actually got this idea from my sister who recently became a grandmother, not that her grandson looks anything like this. She laughingly said she didn't know if it was genetic programming or what, but she honestly thought her new grandson was the cutest baby she'd ever seen.

It is genetic programming, of course, not just in her case but in the case of all mammals. If we didn't think our babies were cute as hell, nothing would stop us from smothering them the first time they woke us up in the middle of the night screaming. Scientists actually call this "the cute gene," and all species that need care as infants have it. Ones that are capable of surviving on their own the minute they're born aren't "cute," they just look like miniature adults. Snakes are an example. So, probably, was Ann Coulter.

On a happier note, Thursday night here in NYC is an art show at the Bowery Hotel. Performing a couple of live acoustic sets at the show is my friend Rhett Miller, solo artist and front man/singer/songwriter for Old 97s. He's amazing live – very energetic – and his songs are killer good. Go here for info, the show is free and I'll be there with CHNW, for sure. For an additional 40% off the cover charge, tell them Bizarro sent you. As I said, the show is free.

World Cup Confession

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Excitement of the World Cup!!!

I've been watching a bit of the World Cup lately and I'll be honest, I'm having trouble getting into it. I used to play a bit of soccer and enjoyed that, but watching it is dull to me. It's the same game as hockey, which I love, except that in hockey the field is small, the players move quickly, there is lots of action and violence and skill and excitement of all kinds every few seconds. In contrast, soccer seems mostly to be a wide-angle view of a huge park with a lot of similarly dressed people jogging in it.

I know this will irritate soccer fans, sorry about that, and it is the most popular sport in the world so clearly I'm missing something that millions of others see. But I cannot lie to myself any longer. It bores me.

One other thing that I find untenable about soccer is the habit of every player on every team to fall to the ground and fake an injury with all the dramatic skill of a professional wrestler every time they are brushed against. This flies in the face of everything my father taught me about sportsmanship. I find it simultaneously insulting and laughable.

That being said, I hope everyone who enjoys soccer has a jazztown hootenanny good time watching the World Cup this year! Seriously. It's always nice when countries can get together and only pretend to hurt each other.