Bizarro is brought to you today by Rashid's Walking Sticks of Cairo.

Here is a different take on word play, a collaboration of mine with my friend, Cliff. He and I are working on a book project together, which consists entirely of word puzzles. This cartoon is not part of it, however. More on that as it develops.

I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and found myself wondering each summer as the heat reached 100% Fahrenheit (that's 614% Celsius for those of you not familiar with the metric system), why people before the days of air conditioning decided to settle there. Especially when you consider that they regularly wore coats and ties and petticoats and long-sleeve dresses and boots and hats. If they didn't have diminished I.Q.s when they got there, they soon would after a few summers dressed like that.

Come to think of it, it might explain some of the voting patterns of the Deep South.

Christmas Humor

My friend and colleague, J. C. Duffy, of The Fusco Brothers syndicated strip and New Yorker magazine cartoon fame, posted what I consider to be a funny cartoon and a clever poem last week. The cartoon is at right, seek ye here for the poem.

His other posts are quite amusing, as well. His blog is one of my few daily reads.

Tourist Compulsions

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unique New Year's Appetizers of Omaha!

Here's a fun idea from my mythical buddy, Derek. His musing about what the observation deck on the Tower of Pisa might be like led to this drawing of Aryan tourists struggling mightily against the forces of gravity to peer through the pay telescope which was installed shortly after construction in 1302. The key to the telescope was lost in the 15th century, and the money has not been emptied since. It is thought to contain in excess of $7 million dollars in coins.

Among the most notable features of the tower is the number of tourists who take this kind of picture of it.

Santa Slim

(For a SUPER HOLIDAY SIZE look at this cartoon, click on the image!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Family Holiday Visits

I had a lovely holiday last week, hope you did, too. Unless you didn't celebrate a holiday last week, in which case I hope you had a lovely, regular day of no particular significance. Unless you are a rotten person who makes the world a worse place for your having been in it, in which case I hope you got what was coming to you and you're reading this blog from the bottom of a pit in the wilderness. Don't bother posting your location in the comments section, either, nobody is coming to rescue you. Should have thought of that before you made the world a worse place.

This week is New Years Day, depending on your religion and culture. Don't forget to set you clocks back to 1959 and party with this dude.

Monkey Covers

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

It's Yarn Man vs. Cowboy Gorilla on Don Simpson's cover for Don Simpson's Bizarre Heroes #9 (1995).

(Standard disclaimer about cowboy gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Shoes Make the Man

Bizarro is brought to you today by Shoes for the New Depression.

Few people realize it, but I'm a big fan of American football. My dad and I bonded over football when I was a kid and I've enjoyed it ever since. I played it all through elementary school and junior high, but after that you had to be a side-of-beef-with-cleats to make the team, regardless of your skills, and the social scene (macho jocks) did not suit my delicate, artistic temperament. I don't go to games and paint myself like an inexpensive souvenir, but I do watch a lot of football on TV.

While I like football and follow it each year, I still find the macho attitude part detestable. I can stand few things less than an athlete or coach interview. They are all the same, virtually interchangeable, utterly predictable. You might as well be asking chickens why they crossed the road.

I often wonder if mainstream pro sports will ever become gay friendly. Statistics would support that there are any number of gay men playing pro sports, but none have ever come out. I wish someone at the very top of the game, like a Super Bowl winning quarterback or linebacker, would come out of the closet. (There is still hope for Steve Young of the 49ers.) It would cause an uproar at first, but in the long run I think it would do a lot of good for gay rights.

One thing I like about sports is that there is such a large psychological component in it. Size, speed, strength, ability, none of these things are enough to win. Without the proper psychology, you're just another muscle-bound thug with a number on your shirt. Even more interesting, is that an entire team can have a group psychology. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a good example. They could scarcely buy a win when they had their original, prissy logo and uniforms. After they changed to a much tougher persona, they started picking up steam and are now a regular contender.

The pink and blue uniform in the cartoon above is a nod to that idea, of course. I wrote the cartoon because I thought the concept of playing sports in glass shoes was sort of funny, and most markets print Bizarro is black and white so that was the end of the joke. In color, I think it's a bit of a nice bump to add the matching colors of the Fairy GMother and his uniform.

Hope everyone had a swell holiday week. The cartoon I ran on Xmas day this year attracted tons of hate mail. More on that subject middle of next week when I post the cartoon.

Friday Christmas Five of a Kind: Snowmen Attack!

I've collected cover scans for over 1200 comics with a Christmas theme, which at 25 per year would take me over 40 years to post them all! So every Friday during December this year I'm posting five theme-related Christmas covers.

Sure, they have songs that call them "Jolly Happy Souls," but you just can't trust those snowmen!







Strange Adventures #79 (1957) (by Gil Kane)
Donald Duck #2 (1984)
Donald Duck #6 (1986)
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992) (by Bill Watterson)
Action Comics #116 (1948) (by Ira Yarbrough)

Christmas Covers - December 25

For each day of December until Christmas I've been featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version.

We finish this season's celebration of Christmas covers with a scene of the nativity from Junior Partners #5.

We'll be back in December 2009 with twenty-five more holiday-themed covers.

(2007: Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact #194)
(2006: Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact #35)
(2005: Dell Four Color #1274)
(2004: Captain Marvel Adventures #19)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Lew Stringer's Christmas Comic Covers)
(Jon K's Christmas Comics Cover Countdown)
 

Death Takes a Holiday

This special Xmas edition of Bizarro is brought to you by Last Minute Gift Ideas.

The photo above is from CHNW's and my 2007 holiday email. We took this picture in Montreal in the beautiful and huge cemetery up on Mount Royal, for which the city is named. It isn't Photoshopped, we came across the head stone just as it appears and put our camera on timer to make the picture. As an inveterate hater of Christmas and the entire tacky season, I could scarcely believe my good fortune.

We searched for hours looking for other gravestones with names of other things we wished were dead like "Neo-Con," "Factory Farms," "Fox News Network," and "Reality Shows," to no avail. For some reason, they don't place them alphabetically.

The cartoon posted today is from several years ago and is one of my personal favorites. I published it on Xmas two years in a row and it was very popular both times. I got complaint letters both times, too, of course, from people who thought I was making fun of their heroes, missing the point of the cartoon entirely.

I'm going up to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary for a dandy holiday with a nice big wad of friends. Hope your holiday is as groovy as the Monkees in 1969.

Christmas Covers - December 24

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Calvin and Hobbes open their Christmas presents on the cover to the Tommy og Tigern Julehefte 2007 by Bill Watterson.

Come back tomorrow for our final Christmas cover of the year.

Just 1 more 'get-up' until Santa!


(2007: Action Comics #105)
(2006: Dell Four Color #666)
(2005: Dell Four Color #1274)
(2004: Captain Marvel Adventures #19)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Lew Stringer's Christmas Comic Covers)
(Jon K's Christmas Comics Cover Countdown)
 

Fish Face

Bizarro is brought to you today by Solid Rhythm.

One of my favorite books as a student was To Kill a Mockingbird. The movie adaptation with Gregory Peck is great, too. A few weeks ago, a reader suggested the phrase "to mock a killingbird," without any firm idea of how to use it. I liked it and quickly came up with this caption and image for it.

Another reader wrote saying that he liked the cartoon but that eagles catch their prey facing the same direction as they're flying. That makes sense, I suppose, so I thanked him for his knowledge morsel.

I was inclined to draw the fish facing the same way as the bird, but reversed it in this case so that the caption would be on the right, which I liked better compositionally. But now that I look at it, it occurs to me that the fish isn't face backward or forward, his body is perpendicular to the eagle's. So they may be traveling the same direction as the fish when they nab them, but once in the air and they return their feet to their natural position, the fish faces sideways and it doesn't matter which way its head is facing.

These the are the kinds of things I spend too much time thinking about.

Some interesting stuff about the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee:
She was a tomboy and a childhood friend of Truman Capote, who was the opposite of a tomboy. (a tinagirl?)
She worked as a reservations agent for an airline until she was in her thirties.
After having published only a handful of articles, she quit her job and wrote her first novel.
It won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into an Academy Award winning film.
She traveled with Capote to Kansas when he was writing In Cold Blood, another great book.
Aside from a couple of short essays, she never published again.
Capote did very little publishing after In Cold Blood, and nothing of any real note.
Both Harper and Capote had prehensile tails.

For more information on Harper Lee and Truman Capote, speak with your village elders.

Christmas Covers - December 23

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)


The Black Cat has fallen asleep waiting for Santa on Ken Selig's cover to The Original Black Cat #8 (1992).

Come back tomorrow for our penultimate Christmas cover of the year.

Just 2 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Dennis the Menace Pocket Full of Fun #22)
(2006: Girls Bravo vol. 6)
(2005: All-New Collectors' Edition #C-53)
(2004: Impulse #34)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Lew Stringer's Christmas Comic Covers)
(Jon K's Christmas Comics Cover Countdown)
 

A Time for Healing

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by a cult of pie worshippers.

I like a good pie chart joke. I like chart jokes of all kinds, in fact. My favorite chart joke that I've done was back in the late nineties and I'd be able to show it to you now if my big computer wasn't in the hospital.

For the last several days, I've been doing my blogs, email and cartoon coloring work on my laptop computer. It is several years older than my desktop computer and not nearly as powerful, so I've been slowed way down. Also, a lot of things I had arranged on my desktop computer for easy access are not arranged that way in my laptop, so finding things like my favorite chart joke from the late nineties would be too time consuming to attempt.

Last Tuesday night, my computer came down with a cough and a mild fever. I thought it was nothing, gave it a little Tylenol and sent it to bed. The next morning it was comatose and would not wake up. I rushed it to the emergency room and it is still being diagnosed. I should hear from the doctor today, keep your fingers crossed.

Get-well-soon cards are appreciated and should be sent to this address:
Guy Fixing Piraro's Mac
Somewhere in Park Slope
Brooklyn, NY

No flowers, please.

Christmas Covers - December 22

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Hey kids: Rags Rabbit is back for the holidays on the cover to Harvey Hits Comics #3 (1987). (I bet you didn't even know he was gone...)

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

Just 3 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Marge's Little Lulu #90)
(2006: Dell Giant #26)
(2005: Man-Thing #3)
(2004: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #9)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
(Lew Stringer's Christmas Comic Covers)
(Jon K's Christmas Comics Cover Countdown)
 

Khan Job

(I would not mind at all if you clicked these images to view them larger. In fact, I would prefer it.)
Bizarro is brought to you today by the Christmas Tornado.

Here's a kookey little play on words about the Great Wall of China. If they have a great wall, why not a great chair, rug and lamp? Get it?!

A reader (and writer) wrote to me last week and asked me why they were flinging a plate of spaghetti at the wall. I thought it was obvious, but in case there are others out there wondering, it's because I figure what better way to attack one's furnishings than by spilling spaghetti and red wine on them?

The title panel, or "header panel," as it is called in the cartoon industry, was an old one that I reworked to look Genghis Khany.

Here is the original header panel. Can you spot the differences?

Christmas Monkee Covers - December 21

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. In addition, Sunday is Monkee Covers day here at YACB, because there's nothing better than a comic with monkees on the cover!

Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday Monkee comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Celebrate Christmas like a teen-ager in 1968 on the cover of Teen Beam #2. I'm sure that Mike, Davy, Peter & Micky will appreciate it!

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

Just 4 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Bugs Bunny #46)
(2006: Wacky Squirrel #2)
(2005: Archie Giant Series Magazine #15)
(2004: DC Comics Presents #67)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Tiny Ink Bubbles

Bizarro is brought to you today by contributions from people like this.

Some readers of this "blog," as I like to call it, have expressed an interest in seeing some of my unpublished work. So today I bring you two pages from a sketchbook from 1997. I'd lost this book for years and worried mightily about it, but just discovered it in my basement a couple of weeks ago. Thank goodness.


Like most of my sketchbook drawings, these images were produced by starting out in the middle of the page somewhere, with no real idea in mind. I draw whatever comes to mind, then add to it until the page is filled. I guess you could call it stream of consciousness. They aren't meant to mean anything, of course, but these kinds of images are among my favorites that I've ever done. I still enjoy looking at them years later.

This particular sketchbook is very small, about 5"x7". To see the images full size, come to my house. Or just click on the images.

Christmas Covers - December 20

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Celebrate Christmas with Professor Garbanzo, Mr. Spook, Beanish, and the rest of the Beanworld residents on the cover of the brand new Larry Marder's Beanworld Holiday Special.

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

Just 5 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Archie Giant Series Magazine #218)
(2006: 52 week 33)
(2005: Strangers in Paradise #70)
(2004: The Amazing Spider-Man #314)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

3 Sheets to the Wind

Bizarro is brought to you today by Taliban's Discount Clothiers.

Since yesterday's cartoon sparked such a lively debate about religion's place in law making, I decided to post this cartoon from last January, which, if memory serves, appeared on this blog back then. I'm too lazy to look it up.

When this first ran, I got a couple of complaints from people who accused me of bigotry toward Islam. This plays into yesterday's theme about gay marriage because less important than my silent respect for another person's religious beliefs is the rights of the victims of those beliefs. The burqa robs a person of her identity, as this cartoon shows, and places her irrevocably as a second-class citizen. I don't believe religion is an acceptable excuse for oppression, bigotry, murder, imprisonment, or any number of other atrocities visited upon the world by people, and I think it is important to make a stand against it, both here and abroad.

That being said, I think this cartoon is funny. I've often thought of one of those cheesy photo studio shots taken of a Taliban man, his wife, and their three daughters, with all the women in burqas. Does he carry it in his wallet to show people? Does he remember which ghost is which kid? Can he even be sure that the people under the robes are his family?

Friday Night Fights: Earth-2 Superman vs. Post-Crisis Superman

From Infinite Crisis #5 (2006). Art by Jerry Ordway. Letters by Nick J. Napolitano. Colors by Guy Major. Story by Geoff Johns. (click pic for larger)

Ka-Pow? Krashh!

Friday Christmas Five of a Kind: By Dickens!

I've collected cover scans for over 1000 comics with a Christmas theme, which at 25 per year would take me over 40 years to post them all! So every Friday during December this year I'm posting five theme-related Christmas covers.

Nothing says Christmas like sleepless nights, ghosts from your past, and difficult labor-management relations. That must be why Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is a favorite this time of year!








Classics Illustrated #16 (1990) (by Gary Gianni)
Classics Illustrated #50 (1997)
King Classics #9 (1977)
March of Comics #33 (ca. late 1940s)
Marvel Classic Comics #36 (1978) (by Bob Hall & Steve Leialoha)

Christmas Covers - December 19

Superman and other heroes help Santa Claus pass out presents on Frank Quitely's cover to this year's DCU Holiday Special.

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

Just 6 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Walter Lantz New Funnies #167)
(2006: Omaha the Cat Dancer vol. 2 #1)
(2005: Marvel Comics Super Special #39)
(2004: The Spirit #12)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Brokeneck Mountain

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unexpected Visits From Mother Nature.

I'm not too modest to admit that I'm proud of this cartoon. It isn't easy to get politics, slavery, and gay rights onto the funny pages (as opposed to the editorial page), especially all in the same cartoon.

Readers who see my work in the newspaper as well as online, will notice that in the black and white version used in most markets, the cowboy's line ended with a question mark. That was a typo on my part, which I later corrected for the color version. The gag works either way, but I was going for a sarcastic proclamation by the cowboy, not a question.

This cartoon points out that times have changed in the past 150 years, but not as much as we'd like to think. While we no longer officially sanction discrimination based on race, but we still officially discriminate against romantic proclivities.

To those that argue that race is "born" while sexual orientation is a "choice," I would ask, was your sexual orientation a choice? If you didn't consciously choose what turns you on, what makes you think anyone else can?

Christmas Covers - December 18

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Trim the tree with Donald and his nephews on Tony Strobl's cover to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #364 (1971).

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


Just 7 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Guy Garder: Warrior #39)
(2006: Impulse #45)
(2005: Adventures of Superman #487)
(2004: Mutt & Jeff #32)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Sick

Bizarro is brought to you today by Friendly Tongues.

It's been a dark day at Bizarro headquarters. Late last night my computer went into a deep coma. In spite of heroic efforts on my and several Apple expert emergency personnel's part, its brainwaves remain as flat as the top of Rob Blagojevich's head (under the brunette tower of protein.)

Tomorrow it goes into surgery and intensive care. (My computer, not Blagojevich's hair) If you have a god, please say a prayer to him/her/it/them and keep your fingers crossed. I backed everything up recently, so that's good, but it's never recent enough.

Meanwhile, I've lost a lot of recent emails and an entire day of work, so I may not be posting as often in the next few days as I deal with my grief and scramble to recover lost time and work.

Also, I was three or four weeks behind on many emails, so if you sent me something more than a day ago and I have not answered, please resend it. If you are not looking for the answer to an old email, however, please don't add to the smothering heap of laundry I currently have raining down on my head. If you wait a week or two before sending me a new email, it will be much appreciated and will be answered more quickly. Thanks.

Today's cartoon isn't a thigh slapper, but I like the picture. It was fun anthropomorphizing all these birds and think it turned out pretty well.

Christmas Covers - December 17

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Dot wraps her presents on the cover to Little Dot #29.

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


Just 8 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Classics Illustrated #53)
(2006: Patrick The Wolf Boy Christmas Special)
(2005: A Patty Cake Christmas)
(2004: Superman #165)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Christmas Covers - December 16

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Montgomery Wart appears to not have learned the lesson about licking cold flagpoles on Mark Martin's cover to Tantalizing Stories #2 (1992).

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


Just 9 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(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 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

X-Ray Specks

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Perfect Holiday Gifts.

When I was a kid, it was a somewhat common element of suspense stories to have a guy handcuffed to an important briefcase. He was usually some hotshot spy or secret agent and there would invariably be a scene where he'd have to fight off villains while wearing the breifcase. When he was caught, of course, there was the tension of them threatening to chop his hand off to get the case, as if just cutting open the case were not an option.

While going through airport security last month, taking off my flipflops (because flipflop-shaped bombs and guns are so common), I thought of this image. I assumed the days of this kind of courier were over because of 9/11, but since this cartoon appeared in newspapers a week ago, I've heard from four different agencies/people that actually do this for a living and have this problem. They've described various strange solutions, one of them said that in a foreign country he was forced to check the case and ride the conveyor belt through the luggage tunnels to reach the plane.

As a bonus chuckle, here is a sketch for another cartoon I did a few years ago on this same theme, which is too adult for Bizarro, but not filthy enough for adult magazines. Thus, this meager blog is it's world premier.

(As always, click the cartoon to enlargerize.)

Book Suggestion

Fairly often, someone will write to me asking how to go about shifting to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. There is tons of info on the web for this, but a good friend of mine has produced a terrific book that has everything you'd need to get started and live the good life.

Both those who are leaning in this direction but have yet to make the leap and those who've been in the camp for a while can find an endless list of helpful resources in this book. Great for holiday gifts.

Buy it here.

Magical Time of Year

Bizarro is brought to you today by The War on Christmas.

Today's cartoon is from this time last year and is one of my favorites. I like the gag but I also like that people on both sides of the holiday fence can relate to it.

Long before I was interested in politics I wondered about the contradiction of "separation of church and state" and national holidays like Xmas. Constitutionally, this is clearly not a "Christian nation," as so many right-wingers are fond of calling it, but at the same time we have many laws and government customs that are based entirely on Christianity. Maybe there is a reason other than the Bible that I'm missing, but why can't a person have more than one legal spouse, as long as all spouses are consenting adults? Why is Xmas a legal holiday for government workers, but Yom Kippur is only a holiday if you're Jewish? And the most significant current example of course, is our denial of basic rights to gay couples.

Each year I get one of those Christmas War emails that people circulate about how "it's a Christmas tree, not a Holiday tree, not a Hannukah bush, not a Quanza" something-or-other... I usually respond by sending to the same list an explanation about the pagan origins of what is now called a Christmas tree. If you're going to be sanctimonious, seems you should at least have the facts.

Most rational people don't take this so-called "war on Christmas" seriously, but those who do fear the loss of their right to use government facilities and funds to celebrate their religion publically. But there are always loopholes. One can always resort to "Mary and the Magic Baby."

Christmas Covers - December 15

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Rudolph helps Santa trim the tree on Rube Grossman's cover to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #7 (1956).

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


Just 10 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Donald Duck & Co. #49/1964)
(2006: 2000 A.D. #763)
(2005: Incredible Hulk #378)
(2004: Batman #45)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Rot, Papal, Fissures

(To see the comic big-like, click it)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Perfect Gifts Suggestions.

This cartoon is an unusual amalgamation of ideas from different places. A reader suggested I do something about Edward Rock/Paper/Scissors, and a friend of mine, Derek, whose ideas I have used before, suggested an idea about Edward Scissorneck. I thought each of these ideas had some merit, but neither appealed to me on its own. When combined, however, I think they make an interesting triptych.

Of course, the movie came out back in the 1900s and appealed to a cult demographic, so I suspect a lot of my older and very young readers will not get this gag at all. I don't mind publishing cartoons that some readers won't get, though, which is just another of the growing number of reasons that I'm not rich.

Longtime readers often ask me if I've thought of doing a Bizarro movie or animated TV show. I have, but with no recurring characters, story lines, or even subject matter, what would that show be like?

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them before all the newspapers in the country go out of business and I'm forced to seek employment at a Hollywood escort service.

Christmas Monkey Covers - December 14

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. In addition, Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB, because there's nothing better than a comic with monkeys on the cover!

Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday Monkey comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Today's selection is Tom-Tom, The Jungle Boy #3, on a cover that might seem very familiar...

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


Just 11 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Sugar & Spike #68)
(2006: Sugar & Spike #38)
(2005: Sugar & Spike #26)
(2004: Sugar & Spike #32)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Christmas Covers - December 13

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Everyone's favorite mischievous tykes spy something they maybe ought not to on Sheldon Mayer's cover to Sugar & Spike #44 (1963).

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


Just 12 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Love Hina vol. 6)
(2006: Green Lantern: Mosaic #9)
(2005: Jonah Hex #34)
(2004: Starman #27)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)