Huge Duct

Bizarro is brought to you today by Duct Tape.

I'll be honest with, I'm really fond of "Duct Tap Night." Not as an institution, but as a cartoon. I'm not fond of bars in general, the liquor is far more expensive than what I have at home, the music is typically too loud to have a conversation, and I'm not looking for a new sexual experience. It would be fun to meet a friend in a bar and catch up, but quiet bars are increasingly difficult to find and I have no desire to scream at my friends. So I tend to stay home where the drinks are cheap, the music and volume is of my own choosing, and the hot women (wife) will actually go to bed with me.

Although the idea of this comic is funny to me –– women enjoying a bar where the men can't hit on them –– it has been my experience that women usually don't go to bars except to look for mating possibilities, so the whole concept is probably erroneous. Note that I said "usually." As I typed that sentence, I had a premonition of torrents of comments from angry women saying they like to meet their girlfriends in bars and have no thoughts toward being "picked up." Okay, fine, my bad. If that's you, you'll love Duct Tape Night.

This next cartoon was drawn from personal experience. I am inordinately tall – 7' 5" – and have always had a terrible time finding clothes that fit in those Big and Tall men's shops. It could be that even at that height I am still too far out of the norm to be catered to by mass production. Or, it could be that I still have a touch of dyslexia from time to time, I am actually 5' 7", and I have no business in a Big and Tall shop in the first place. That would explain why the clothes in those shops are so baggy, come to think of it.

I'll be posting again tomorrow, but I want to be sure to remind you to check in next week when I'll be posting my holiday family newsletter; a complete rundown of all the precious and adorable moments of my family for the past 12 months. I don't send out cards or letters of any kind this time of year, so this is the only place to get it.

Christmas Covers - December 17

Heathcliff relaxes after a holiday meal on Warren Kremer's cover to Heathcliff #6 (1986).

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Holiday-related comic book cover. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 8 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2009: Gold Digger X-Mas Special #2)
(2008: Little Dot #29)
(2007: Classics Illustrated #53)
(2006: Patrick The Wolf Boy Christmas Special)
(2005: A Patty Cake Christmas)
(2004: Superman #165)

(Polite Dissent's 2010 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(2010 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Bully the Little Stuffed Bull's Riverdale Christmas)
(The Comics Cube's Christmas Countdown)  
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2010) 

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 (+1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books
3 (-1). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
4 (+1). Dilbert: 2011 Day-to-Day Calendar
5 (-1). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
6 (-). 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective
7 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
8 (+20). Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Boxset
9 (-1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
10 (-1). Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
11 (-1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
12 (-1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
13 (-1). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
14 (-). Dork Diaries 2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl
15 (+1). Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life
16 (-3). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
17 (+3). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
18 (-3). The Walking Dead, Book 1
19 (-1). Big Nate: From the Top
20 (-3). Walking Dead Volume 13
21 (-). The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye
22 (-3). Fables Vol. 14: Witches *
23 (-1). Superman: Earth One
24 (+1). The Walking Dead Volume 2: Miles Behind Us
25 (-2). The Walking Dead, Book 6
26 (-2). The Walking Dead Book 2
27 (+7). The Walking Dead Volume 3: Safety Behind Bars
28 (+8). Walking Dead Volume 12
29 (+12). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
30 (+3). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
31 (-1). Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (Calvin & Hobbes)
32 (-5). The Walking Dead Book 5
33 (R). Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland
34 (R). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
35 (+3). The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
36 (-7). The Indispensable Calvin And Hobbes
37 (+6). Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume
38 (-6). The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1975-1978 (Vol. 13-14)
39 (+1). Odd Is on Our Side
40 (-9). The Walking Dead Book 3
41 (R). V for Vendetta
42 (-16). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
43 (-1). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
44 (R). Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind
45 (+2). It's A Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
46 (R). Batman: The Killing Joke
47 (+2). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
48 (-13). The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future
49 (-3). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
50 (R). X'ed Out


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 Wimpy Kid stays #4 on the overall bestseller chart, and continues to hold on to the top 3 slots on the comics chart.

* Except for the vaulting of the Scott Pilgrim box set up into the top 10, there is very little movement of titles in the top 20 of the chart. Certainly well within the realm of this chart's hourly churn.

* There are no debuts this week. Last week's lone debut, Brightest Day vol. 1, slips off the chart, which is somewhat surprising given that all of the Brightest Night collections did so well.

* Walking Dead watch: thirteen collections in the top fifty, one less than last week. Now that the television show has finished its first season, we will likely see a softening of demand for the Dead until near its second season in October. Then again, The Walking Dead is one of those comics that continues to defy conventional sales patterns, so who knows...?

* This week's #50 title is #2,005 on the overall chart.

Snow Mysteries

Bizarro is brought to you today by Snow.

It's cold in NYC this week and we had a slight dusting of snow, so I thought I'd drag a few old Bizarros out of the cartoon freezer today. There is something irresistible about snowman gags to cartoonists, and these are some of my favorite gags of any kind.

We begin with this cartoon based on a true story that happened in Cheboygan, Michigan in 1983. It seems that a small group of 9-year-old boys built four snowmen on Thursday, December 15th. When they returned to the site the following day, exactly 27 years ago today, one of the snowmen had been murdered by the other three, their carrot-nose murder weapons still sticking out of the gaping wounds in his chest. By the time the police arrived, an unidentified rabbit had eaten all three of the carrots and left the scene. Authorities arrested the three suspects but they disappeared from lockup over night and have not been seen since. The rabbit, a suspected accomplice, remains at large. Snowman-on-snowman crime, however, is not uncommon and most cases go unsolved.

Our next cartoon features the growing trend among snowpeople toward cosmetic surgery. Though exact statistics are impossible to gather, experts estimate that nearly one quarter of all snowpeople in the U.S. are using elective surgery to make themselves more attractive. Snow cones are a cheap method of breast augmentation and sales of "baby carrots" are up 130% in the past ten years, presumably to achieve a more attractive nose than the traditional full size, adult carrot. Snowmen have been known to use parsnips for penis enlargement, though their proximity to the ground have led to some thefts.

Our last cartoon documents a mystery upon a mystery. Archeologists are still uncertain as to the origins of the large stone heads on Easter Island, and even more mystified by their replacement each winter with big whopping snowman heads. Government officials have declared the island off limits to tourism during these months fearing vandalism of the heads, which are notably more fragile than the stone ones. Samples of the snow are gathered by scientists each year and guarded carefully as they look for clues to its provenance. Theories of the origin of the frozen craniums range from intervention by extraterrestrials with a juvenile sense of humor to ghosts of the children of the indigenous inhabitants who erected the stone heads visible throughout the rest of the year.

If you have a strange winter mystery that you think would make an interesting cartoon, write it on a 3"x5" note card in 200 words or less and mail it to:
Santa Claus
1 North Pole
The Arctic 00001

Stay warm and thirsty, my friends.





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Christmas Covers - December 16

It's a blue, blue Christmas on Kyoko Ariyoshi's cover to Swan vol. 15 (2010).

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Holiday-related comic book cover. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 9 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2009: The Transformers #250)
(2008: Tantalizing Stories #2)
(2007: Funny Pages vol. 2 #43)
(2006: Katy Keene #33)
(2005: Bone Holiday Special)
(2004: Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #76)

(Polite Dissent's 2010 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(2010 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Bully the Little Stuffed Bull's Riverdale Christmas)
(The Comics Cube's Christmas Countdown)  
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2010) 

Prophetic Comedy

Bizarro is brought to you today by Xmas Celebrity Sightings.

Since we humans are so prone to superstition and mysticism, I could easily attribute the harrowing accident involving my wife and a taxi cab on December 10th to my cartoon that ran in newspapers on December 7th. It was undoubtedly an unwitting premonition, perhaps even a prophecy. I'll think twice before I use terms like "prescription for disaster" in Bizarro again. Whew!

Or, I could use the other 99.99999% of my brain and admit that not all coincidences have spiritual meaning. In fact, there's pretty much no evidence whatsoever that any of them do. Unless you choose to apply one, which I recommend you do at your own risk. History teaches us that superstition can lead to some pretty idiotic life choices. Like war.

T Rex has no superstitions, he just needs help in his cafe because he is short-handed. Get it? Short handed? What kind of damn fool dinosaur starts a cafe if he cannot even carry a tray without dropping it? And what does he do with the tables of patrons he knocks over with is mighty tail? Perhaps he just eats them. T Rexs can be like that.

My fanny pack riff got a few emails from readers with a better knowledge of anatomy than mine who informed me that the "liver pack" is on the wrong side of the man's body. What we actually have here is a "spleen pack." My bad, as surgeons up on malpractice charges frequently say.

Of course, if you want to get really picky, the "belly pack" is actually an "intestine pack." The stomach is much higher. Unless you want to be extremely liberal in your interpretation of "belly," but don't even get me started on that kind of irresponsible artistic license. Cartoons should be as factual as possible. If you can't trust the information in a cartoon, what can you trust?, I always say.

Don't forget all the life-changing Bizarro products that can be found somewhere around here. Perfect for holiday gift-giving!



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Christmas Covers - December 15

Let's celebrate Christmas with the Super-heroes 80s style on John Byrne's cover for Christmas with the Super-Heroes #1 (1988).

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Holiday-related comic book cover. (Click on the image to get a larger version.)

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.

Just 10 more 'get-ups' until Santa!

(2009: Kollektivet Julealbum 2007)
(2008: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #7)
(2007: Donald Duck & Co. #49/1964)
(2006: 2000 A.D. #763)
(2005: Incredible Hulk #378)
(2004: Batman #45)

(Polite Dissent's 2010 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(2010 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Bully the Little Stuffed Bull's Riverdale Christmas)
(The Comics Cube's Christmas Countdown)  
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2010)