Friday, 22 October 2010

Friday Night Fights: Captain America vs. Baron Zemo


From Avengers #6 (1964). Art by Jack Kirby & Chic Stone. Story by Stan Lee. Letters by Sam Rosen. Color reconstruction by Tom Ziuko (from Avengers Classic #6 - 2008).

The American Way? It's Free-for-All!

Death Disease Advertising


Bizarro is brought to you today by Waxy Heston.

Just for the sake of doing something different, today I'll start out with an old cartoon from the Bizarro archives, and then move on to the more recent cartoons. If you're uncomfortable with this change and would like to reverse this order, click here.

Here is a cartoon from 1996, only a few months after my first wife and I suddenly split up as a result of a dispute over the 7th commandment. I'm not a big fan of most of the commandments but this is one that remains one of my general rules in life for both myself and my partner. I guess I'm just an old-fashioned boy from Tulsa.

During this time I was very upset as a rule, and at times I was downright suicidal. The normally painful act of scraping a new cartoon out of the folds of my brain each day was exceptionally excruciating during this period, when all I really wanted to do was fantasize about double homicide. But my regular habits of eating daily and living indoors depended on it, so I soldiered on. This cartoon is an excellent example of how one can turn one's darker thoughts into comedy fit for public consumption.

In contrast, these days I'm pretty happy so my jokes are not mostly about death. Here's one, for example, that is about disease. The spelling error idea was sent to me by a reader and this is how I used it. A close friend of mine recently got a random staph infection in his eye and nearly lost it. No kidding, you shouldn't play around with that stuff. Eyes are handy, especially in pairs. He's better now, thanks.

This last idea I got while watching Mad Men, one of my favorite television programs. I think of myself as a sort of Don Draper type, except I'm not living under an assumed identity, I'm not in advertising, and I'm not suave and irresistible to women. Other than that, though...

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 (+5). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
3 (+2). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
4 (-2). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness
5 (+1). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
6 (-3). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
7 (-3). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
8 (+15). Superman: Earth One *
9 (-1). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight
10 (+3). The Walking Dead, Book 6 *
11 (+1). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
12 (+36). X'ed Out
13 (-4). Odd Is on Our Side
14 (-4). Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale *
15 (-1). Parker: The Outfit
16 (-). Big Nate: From the Top *
17 (-2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books
18 (+6). Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland
19 (+1). X-Men: Second Coming
20 (-2). Walking Dead Volume 12
21 (+11). Dork Diaries 2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl
22 (-5). Walking Dead Volume 13 *
23 (+3). The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future
24 (N). 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective *
25 (N). The Adventures of Unemployed Man
26 (+7). Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life
27 (R). Dilbert: 2011 Day-to-Day Calendar
28 (+7). Batman: The Killing Joke
29 (-2). Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 3 *
30 (-9). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
31 (+13). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
32 (-21). Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts
33 (R). Blacksad
34 (N). Y The Last Man Deluxe Edition Book Four
35 (+4). The Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1975-1978 (Vol. 13-14)
36 (-8). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
37 (-15). Kick-Ass
38 (-1). Watchmen
39 (N). Batman: Life After Death
40 (R). Blackest Night
41 (+4). The Walking Dead Book 5
42 (-6). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
43 (-). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
44 (-2). Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s *
45 (-26). American Vampire Vol. 1
46 (+4). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
47 (N). DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle
48 (R). The Walking Dead, Book 3
49 (-20). The Cloud Searchers (Amulet)


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 soon-to-be-released Wimpy Kid volume slips to #3 on the overall list this week, pushed down by the new Keith Richards autobiography. Dog Days, the previous Wimpy Kid volume, hops up ahead of Scott Pilgrim to #2 on the comics list (and #141 overall). That's mainly due to the waning interest in Scott Pilgrim, which despite the bargain prices on Amazon continue a steady decline on the overall list.

* JMS's Superman: Earth One hits stores next week and pops up into the top ten on Amazon. Also jumping up the list is Charles Burns' X'ed Out to #12. Falling precipitously this week are Lynd Ward, American Vampire, and The Cloud Searchers (#49 on the comics list and #2,527 overall).

* Debuting this week are 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective, The Adventures of Unemployed Man, Y The Last Man Deluxe Edition Book Four, Batman: Life After Death, and DC Comics Year by Year.

Betty #188


Betty #188
Nov 2010 | 36 pages | CBR | 20.5 MB
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