Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5: The Ugly Truth *
2 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
3 (-). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
4 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
5 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
6 (+1). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
7 (-1). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
8 (-). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
9 (+3). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
10 (-). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
11 (-). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
12 (+1). The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future
13 (-1). Kick-Ass
14 (-5). Walking Dead Volume 12
15 (N). The Cloud Searchers (Amulet)
16 (-1). Blackest Night
17 (+3). Lost at Sea
18 (+14). American Born Chinese (paperback)
19 (-3). Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill
20 (-5). Watchmen
21 (+17). The Arrival
22 (N). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books *
23 (+1). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight *
24 (-3). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
25 (R). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
26 (+14). The Walking Dead, Book 1
27 (N). The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1975-1978 (Vol. 13-14) *
28 (N). Superman: Earth One *
29 (-4). V for Vendetta
30 (-7). Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows
31 (-9). Green Lantern: Blackest Night
32 (+5). The Walking Dead, Book 2
33 (-7). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
34 (-5). Garfield Potbelly of Gold: His 50th Book
35 (N). The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14) *
36 (+5). Batman: The Killing Joke
37 (-4). The Walking Dead Book 5
38 (-7). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat
39 (N). Hetalia Axis Powers Volume 1 *
40 (+5). The Walking Dead, Book 3
41 (R). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
42 (-23). Troublemaker Book 1: Alex Barnaby Series 3
43 (N). Dante's Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation
44 (-14). Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love
45 (R). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
46 (-18). Blankets
47 (-20). Batman: Year One
48 (R). Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft
49 (N). Bleach, Vol. 32
50 (-). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)


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:

* Things are rather boring near the top of the list, with very little change in the relative positions. Wimpy Kid 5 is up to #15 on the overall list, while the Scott Pilgrim volumes fall to #54, 58, 67 & 73. Maus I clocks in at #305, while the item at the bottom of the list is at #5,185 (up nearly 1500 from last week's #6,684).

* The highest debut this week belongs the The Cloud Searchers, the latest in Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet series. Also debuting are two box sets (one for Wimpy Kid, the other for Peanuts); the first volume of Superman: Earth One; the latest Complete Peanuts volume; a graphic adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy; and two manga volumes: Hetalia Axis Powers and Bleach.

* I always find it interesting that the two-volume Peanuts box sets tend to sell better on Amazon than do the individual volumes.

Sort of a Comedy Show!

Quick announcement:
I'm going to be appearing at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa California on Saturday afternoon, Sept 11, 2010. I'll be joining a metric buttload of other cartoonists from 1pm to 3pm for a sketch-a-thon, which means we sit behind tables and draw stuff for free or sign books or whatever, and then at 3:30pm, I'm doing a talk in the auditorium. It'll be fun, funny and FREE. Hope to see some of youse there.

P.S. Tell them you found out about it on this blog and it will be even MORE free.

WORD TO YOUR MOTHER

Cannibal Fashion

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Best 70 Bucks You'll Ever Spend.

So what's the deal with people who wear their sunglasses on the back of their head? Is this the logical extension of the backwards baseball cap? For me, both of these trends show a small glimpse of the the sort of utterly nonsensical behavior humans are uniquely known for. Baseball caps have bills on them to block the sun, so let's wear them backwards. Sunglasses were invented to protect our eyes, so let's put them on the back of our heads. Shoes exist to protect our feet, let's wear them on our hands. Or better yet, tie them to our belt and let them dangle from our waist. Non-human animals don't engage in this kind of behavior. Having a mutant, complex brain is a mixed bag, often leading us to do things we can't logically explain.

From the archives today we have a cannibal joke from 1999. There have been lots of puns about cannibals, my favorite being the clown in the giant cooking pot and a cannibal commenting that he "tastes funny." No idea who first did that, but it still makes me smile.

I've done other cannibal and primitive tribe cartoons and I've learned over the years that you have to be careful not to make them look African. This draws complaints from people who think you're advancing the racist stereotypes that black folks are more primitive than white. The best-known cannibals were mostly from the South Pacific, although it's been practiced from time to time by all kinds of cultures across the globe. The characters in my cartoon look pretty nondescript so I didn't get any angry letters.

A word of warning to any readers thinking of taking up the practice, cannibalism by any species leads to terminal dementia. Mad Cow Disease is the direct result of feeding ground-up cattle to cattle, for instance, which has been a money-saving practice of meat producers for some time. Some scientists believe that Alzheimer's Disease may be an offshoot from eating meat that has been raised that way, but it hasn't been proved.

The bottom line is, eating other people is probably okay on an occasional basis, but you wouldn't want to make a habit of it. Eating other species who ate their own is probably not a good idea, either.

Cheesus Loves Me

A reader of yesterday's blog post pointed me to this inspirational news story about "Cheesus". I hope your life is enriched by it as much as mine was.



And people ask me where I get my ideas for Bizarro.



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Cheeses Saves

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Holy Family.

Today's theme is religion as all but the too-dense-to-be-reading-this-blog can easily see. As a vegan, I hate to promote any good news about cheese, but this pun was too much fun to pass up so I made an exception. If this were the shape of the folks who pester you at home you could answer the door with a giant cracker and scare the hell out of them.

Speaking of Hell, here's a ditty from the archives, from December of '96. This cartoon was requested by a friend who claims it as her favorite. She found it in my book, "Life is Strange and So Are You." It's out of print, as all my books are because you people don't buy enough books, but you can likely still find copies of it if you search online. Amazon may even have some.

This cartoon was from the time before I had learned to color my own work on computer, so I was doing it the old-fashioned way, which was to send the black and white version to the printer with elaborate numbers all over it telling them where to put various percentages of blue, red, yellow, and black. Coloring these things with numbers was an art form all it's own and you never knew what you were going to get until it came out in the paper. This one is ugly as hell, which is apropos. If I were doing it today, it would look so much better.

By the way, this depiction of "heck" is based on a visit to my grandparents' house. They suffered every day of their lives sitting on plastic-covered furniture, but when they died, it was as beautiful and new as the day it was bought. Praise Cheeses.

New Library Comics: August 2010

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


Abel, Jessica. Drawing words & writing pictures : making comics : manga, graphic novels, and beyond / New York : First Second, 2008.

Anzai, Nobuyuki. MÄR : Märchen awakens romance v. 1 / San Francisco, CA : Viz, c2005-

Aushenker, Michael. Bound and gagged / Plymouth, Mich. : Iconografix, 1992

Beyer, David. Worthless comix no. 7 / Milwaukee, Wis. : Beyer Beware Productions, [200-?]-

Buttrick, Adam. Tim Tadabrucki and the falling light / [S.l. : s.n., 200-?]

CLAMP (Mangaka group) Clamp school detectives v. 1 / Los Angeles, Calif. : Tokyopop, 2003-

Crabb, R. L. The natural inquirer by professor Von Crabman no. 1 / Westlake Village, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1989-

Demo el Yelmo. nos. 1-2 / Guadalajara : Instituto Electoral y de Participación Ciudadana del Estado de Jalisco, 2009-

Doxiadēs, Apostolos K., 1953- Logicomix / [Athēna] : Ikaros, 2008.

Fawkes, Ray. Possessions. Book one, Unclean getaway. / Portland, Or. : Oni Press, 2010

Grevioux, Kevin. Alius Rex no. 1 / La Mesa, Calif. : Alias Enterprises, c2006-

Helms, Andrew. Bombos vs. everything. v. 1 / Hamburg ; Los Angeles : Tokyopop, 2007

Hoshine, Ken, 1977- Macbeth / New York : Sparknotes, c2008

Iconografix special. no. 1 / Plymouth, MI : Iconografix, a division of Caliber Press, c1992.

Krosoczka, Jarrett. Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians / New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2009

Laugh. no. 252 / New York : Close-up, Inc., 1946-1987

Love and romance. no. 15 / Derby, Conn. : Charlton Publications, c1970-

Martin, Amy. Bachelor girl no. 1 / [San Francisco, Calif. : Amy Martin, 2009-]

My mutant heart. / New York : Marvel Publishing, Inc., 2006

Neighly, Patrick. Subatomic / Baltimore, MD : Mad Yak Press, 2003

Paige profile no. 3 / Mount Prospect, Ill. : Paige Comics, 197-?-

Paley, Nina. Down 'n' out in Austin Texas : lonely tales from the Lone Star State / Austin, TX : Nina Paley, c1991

Piskor, Ed. Wizzywig vols. 1-3 / Munhall, Pa. : E. Piskor, c2008-

Pogo Possum. no. 7 1951 / New York, N.Y. : Dell Pub. Co., 1949-1954.

Prime cuts. no. 1 / Agoura, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1987-

The Punisher summer special. no. 4 1994 / New York, NY : Marvel Comics, 1991-

Rich, Jamie S. Spell checkers v. 1 / Portland, OR : Oni Press, 2010-

Ross, Tiffany. Alien Dice. [Vol. 1], Days 0 and 1. / Cresbard, SD : Keenspot Entertainment, c2004

Scott, Thom. Motherless child / Princeton, WI : Kitchen Sink Press, c1992.

Starr, Jason, 1966- The chill / New York : DC Comics, c2009.

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes. / New York : Grosset & Dunlap, c1977.

Turner, James. Rex Libris no. 5 / San Jose : SLG Publishing, 2005-

Vigneault, François, 1960- Friends no. 1 / San Francisco, Calif. : Family Style Co., 2004-


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

Self-Loathing Baboon Photo

Bizarro is brought to you today by Vacation Surprises.

Here are three jokes I really like; two new ones and one from 1998.

The basic idea for the baboon joke was sent to me by a reader. I really wish I'd thought of it. So perfect. My wife, CHNW, had heart surgery when she was 20 because one of her valves had been eaten away by a random infection. She needed to have the valve replaced and was offered either a mechanical one or a pig's valve. As regular readers know, she's an avid animal rights activist so you can imagine her response to the pig valve. She got a mechanical one, of course, and now ticks like a clock. When it's really quiet, you can actually hear it.

"Whack-A-Mirror" is based on the popular "Whack-A-Mole" arcade game. I love the self-loathing aspect. Not sure why, I guess because I hate myself sometimes. Don't we all? Please tell me you hate yourself sometimes, I don't want to be the only one. That would give me more reason to hate myself.

This final gag from the archives of Bizarro International Headquaters is a longtime fave of mine. I've seen a few takes on the "I can take that for you if you'd like to be in it" phenomenon, but this is among my favorites. In those days, I used to draw TONS of background on almost every cartoon. I do less of that now because I already work too many hours and the joke is the same either way. Even still, I draw more backgrounds than 99% of cartoonists, so I don't feel so bad. No mirror-whacking for me today.