Cancer Fuss

Yesterday's post garnered some criticism about my assertion that there would be less cancer if people ate vegan diets. I don't want to start a never-ending war of comments and I normally would answer this kind of thing in the comments section itself, but this seemed important enough to post about. As requested, here is a link to one of many articles that supports my comment:

http://www.pcrm.org/resch/edresources/nutr_curr/nutr_curr_2.html

There are many other studies cited on that site, which is run by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, not fringe animal rights activists. I just wanted respond to the accusation that I am spouting off irresponsibly or without evidence. Each person's ethical code is their own business, of course, but mine does not allow the intentional victimization of another for my own benefit, except in cases of self defense against that other being. So I don't believe in torturing others to cure ourselves. That's just me, your results may vary and objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

In short, according to medical information I've read: yes, cancer has numerous causes, susceptibility is genetic, and diet can strongly affect your chances of getting it and recovering from it.

More About Smoking

I wrote about smoking laws a few days back and got a lot of comments, mostly angry ones. I answered many of these comments with my own comments but people typically don't read those and I keep getting the same accusations and derisions, so I thought I'd post my updated thoughts about smoking laws here.

1. Yes, I agree that second-hand smoke can be a health hazard. My argument is that occasionally passing a person on the street who is smoking will not give you cancer. (Note to asthma sufferers: I'm not talking about asthma here.)

2. I do NOT believe that ALL restaurants and bars should allow smoking. I hated those days, too. I'm saying that ALL restaurants and bars should not be REQUIRED to ban it. Most people do not like smoke and would choose smoke-free establishments so there would be plenty of them to choose from. Simple supply and demand. A small percentage would allow smoking, thus giving waitpersons and bartenders plenty of options for working in a smoke-free environment or one that allows smoking. (Note to anyone feeling indignation at this moment: I am NOT saying that you or your loved ones will have to work in a smoke-filled room. This is purely conjecture on my part. Just my opinion; life isn't perfect, neither am I.)

3. I do NOT deny that smoking is a health hazard. My point is only that it is a long-term hazard for some people, not a death sentence for anyone who smells it wafting by on a windy day.

4. Yes, smoke smells bad to non-smokers. That's reason enough to ban it in public buildings. You're right. I agree. We smokers are despicable.

I hope this decree is taken in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is intended. Yes, I smoke cigars, but I won't do it in your home, church or place of business unless you invite me to.

Thanks for reading and please don't hate me. Now check out the next post, which features a cartoon.

Words, Phones, Beards, Snow, Puzzle

Bizarro is brought to you today by Overly Long Book Titles That Make People Uncomfortable.
Today we have a bit of wordplay in the tradition of my cartoon idol, B. Kliban. This was another collaborative effort with my word-obsessed friend, Cliff.

Speaking of words:
1. Some commentators pointed out in yesterday's post that I have confused the meaning of the term "goatee" with "Van Dyck." I have no doubt you are correct, but I lost my facial hair terms chart the last time I moved and so was utilizing common vernacular.

2. A couple of people wrote in the comments section that they had small problems with one aspect or another of my Bizarro iPhone app. All I can say is that mine works fine as does my wife's and a handful of friends I've talked to, but I will mention your comments to the programmers. Bugs in phone apps tend to float around indiscriminately, depending on how good the 3G reception is in your area, how many times you've dropped your phone, and how hemp oil-stained your fingers are when you push the buttons. My exprience with iPhone apps is that all the stuff works most of the time in most apps, and they're either free or a couple of bucks, so I figure it's just the chance you take.

3. I don't have time to post a contest today because I'm out of town this weekend and trying to achieve some deadlines in early. I'm speaking to a Florida group from the Center for Inquiry, which should be fun and certainly a good deal warmer than Brooklyn.

4. To reiterate in larger type: SORRY, NO CONTEST PUZZLE THING THIS WEEK.

ANSWERS TO YOUR COMMENTS!

THIS IS A SPECIAL POSTING ABOUT ELVIS AND MIXED MARTIAL ARTS. A FEW MINUTES AFTER I POST THIS, I'LL DO MY REGULAR CARTOON POSTING:

I got a number of comments about these two subjects which I wanted to address, so rather than hide them in the comments section where the people they are aimed at may never see them, I'm putting them in this EDICION ESPECIAL posting.

Yes, I learned about Elvis's fascination with Holy Grail from the recent Python documentary. Great show, by the way, catch it if you can.

Some say dogs and dolphins fight for fun. I actually don't know anything about that behavior in dolphins and I'm too lazy to look it up, but when dogs rough-house, it isn't really fighting. When I say "fighting" I'm talking about inflicting pain, injury and occasional death for fun. Dogs don't do that, as far as I'm aware.

Someone mentioned that chimps do this and I don't doubt it. Chimps are among our closest relatives (I think only gorillas are closer DNA-wise?) and exhibit some of the same abhorrent behavior as we do. Someday there may be two species of dangerous, mutant apes on the planet. If we don't kill them all first. (which, of course, we would)

I didn't mean to criticize the existence of Mixed Martial Arts or demean the abilities of the participants. I have no doubt that it takes an incredible amount of training and discipline to reach the highest levels. I can appreciate it and could even potentially become a fan, but while violence within a sport is something I can stomach, I'm a little too squeamish when violence is the point of the sport. Just a personal preference thing, not a judgmental thing.

Regarding the existence of these sports, I think they perform an invaluable service to society. Given that humans are by nature violent, mutant apes, if we didn't employ vicarious ways to express our violent urges I suspect it would lead to even more war and violent crime. Perhaps this is one reason that sports have existed as long as human societies have. When given the choice of leaving home to shoot real people or sitting in your beanbag chair with a sixpack of Bud watching people fight in a cage, most people will choose the beanbag. Without that choice, men will go out and break things.

Which reminds me, most of this problem with human violence resides in males, not females. Although some women are in touch with their violent side. (Sarah Palin)

Someone questioned my comment that humans have no natural weapons like fangs, claws, etc., by saying "what about our minds?" I understand your point but it I don't think it is really the same thing. Until we developed our current brain powers, humans weren't particularly good at "out-thinking" stronger, faster animals. That happened after we developed language and thus, the ability to plan and cooperate, which occurred relatively recently in our history. Just my opinion based on something I probably heard on Jeopardy, I'm not an anthropologist.

BEEN GONE FOR DAYS

Thanks for your patience, I've been locked out of my blog since Wednesday night because of a password glitch but now have solved it.

Barring further weirdness, I should be posting more-or-less daily again.

VACATE THE BUILDING

Sorry to say I'll not be posting blogs until November 1. It's my favorite (and least lucrative) task of the day but I'm taking a week off in an attempt to remember what it is like to relax.

Of course, my Bizarro deadlines don't take a week off, so I've had to work double hard in advance to clear my schedule. By the time my vacation starts, I'll be too tired to enjoy it. It's the American way!

Hope you'll drop back by next week when I'll have pictures and stories to tell of our ascent to the motel (pictured above) at the top of Mount Everest. Wish us luck!

Homeschool Maelstrom

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on yesterday's cartoon about homeschooling.

A few notes:
I've never known a homeschooling family, so the post was entirely off the top of my head and intended to be humorous and cynical, not accurate. I threw in some self-deprecating language at the end to that effect for good reason. I'm sure there are plenty of disparate examples of homeschool grads, bad and good, crazy and sane.

I moderate my comments, which means they don't post until I read them and approve or reject them. That explains why none showed up until this morning. Sorry for the delay, but it's the only thing I've found that keeps away the losers who verbally attack the other commenters. I reject almost nothing, except personal attacks that have nothing to do with the blog or cartoons and advertising links.

I actually wish I'd been homeschooled by cool, open-minded parents who dragged me all over the city and countryside to learn about the real world, as one of the commenters described. I went to Catholic school through 7th, then public school, so my degree of social and psychological warp is fairly average.

I don't envy parents trying to find a decent way to educate their kids these days. It's important and difficult. I sent my kids to public magnet schools, which I felt was a good combination of public and private schooling.

Yes, the links in the photos are from AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. Amazing site.

Test Your I.Q.'s Buoyancy

Bizarro is brought to you today by Cat Porn.

This gag left a few readers wondering. It's a fairly odd idea and I'm not surprised it did not ring a bell with some folks.

It's a joke about stupid criminals. I saw a car with a canoe strapped to the roof one day and thought that if it was parked by a lake and some idiots decided to steal it but use the canoe to get away down the river instead of the car down the roads, they might flip it over and attempt to float it. Which would not work, of course. Then again, they'd never be able to flip the car over in the first place, so what we probably have here is just a stupid cartoon.

I've been doing cartoons 7 days a week for nearly 25 years and no matter how hard you try, you're just not going to create a refrigerator-worthy classic every day. In all modesty, I still think I've got a better batting average than most of the stuff in the paper, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself.

I you would like to know firsthand what it is like to be me, follow these three simple steps:

1. Come up with a reasonably original idea and scribble it down in cartoon form
2. Do that 9,125 days in a row
3. Write about it in a blog

Until tomorrow, my your world be full of unicorns and sexy foot massages...

Courage Under Fire

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Second Amendment.

This gag was written by my friend and colleague, Wayno, a fine cartoonist in his own right. He enjoys seeing his ideas in Bizarro from time to time and I enjoy drawing them up. For more of Wayno's work, visit this here place.

Or go to Facebook and look for Wayno Illustration.

Speaking of Facebook, to any of you who have sent me something through that site, I apologize for how long it takes me to respond. I only check the site about once a month and click through requests and stuff as quickly as possible. I often don't have time to answer the comments and notes and things, I hope you will forgive me. Here at Bizarro International Headquarters there is too much for one person to do in a day and I can't afford an assistant. Thanks for understanding, you're a peach.

Darkness and Despair

Bizarro is brought to you today by Crappy Internet.

I've been without Internet and Cable TV for two days, living in the dark ages like Attila the Hun. I sat in damp darkness eating bugs, totally out of touch with the world, no way to find out what's going on, no way to find out what "Weeds'" Nancy Botwin's latest kerfuffle was, and worst of all, kept away from YOU, by beloved blog friends.

I'm back now and can't believe all I've missed. Republicans have aired a TV commercial linking Sotomayor with Puerto Rican terrorists and infamous unrepentant domestic terrorist, William Ayers. WHAT?!!

Okay, that was about all I missed, I think. I'm back now, until the tiny plastic box bulging with wires and rubber bands and globs of hot glue that services my entire neighborhood in Brooklyn with cable and Internet is bumped by a squirrel again. Keep your cyber-fingers crossed.

Bizasso

Quick clarification: In the title panel for this past Sunday's cartoon, I made a stupid mistake, which is doubly bad because I made it once before. When I created this panel, I looked up the sign language alphabet to spell out "Bizarro." Evidently, I looked at the wrong sign for "R" and used the one for "S" instead, so my original title panel spelled out "Bizasso," a mistake brought to my attention by several readers back in March when I first used it. I corrected the drawing later and placed the revised version in my files for future use. But like a doofus, I forgot to remove the incorrect version.

Yesterday, I used the incorrect one again, and again it was pointed out to me by readers. Some people never learn.

Strange Week

Bizarro is brought to you today by Summer Weather.

I've been getting a lot of emails and blog comments in the last couple of days about the cartoons of July 10 and 11. I drew these five or six weeks ago and I suppose I was having an ambiguous week. Sometimes I get experimental in subject matter, or humor, or color scheme, and even if it doesn't work for everyone, I think it keeps the feature fresh. For me, at least, which I think is important. If I get bored, it will show.

This cartoon about the happy family means nothing more than what it looks like. It's just funny to me. "Let's get started!" doing what? I don't know. What do happy, perfect families do at home at night? I don't know anyone who had one, so I've no experience to draw from.

When I was a child, my own family looked very normal from the outside, the quintessential Ozzy-and-Harriet dreamworld. And even though we ate dinner together every night, then settled in to watch TV, it was not the utopia pictured above.

Night after night, we were forced to watch industrial training films from the linoleum industry over and over again. To make certain we were paying attention, my mother shot live rounds over our heads. Dad watched from a dog cage under the dining room table, barking and panting like a Golden Retriever. One of my sisters was born with gills and lived in an oil drum full of water. Her splashing would spot the TV screen with rainbow dots of magnifying liquid.

Maybe this cartoon was just therapy for me.

REGARDING YESTERDAY'S CARTOON: A few people have complained that suicide isn't funny. I agree, I lost a good friend to suicide. But humor of this kind is a uniquely human practice and serves a valuable purpose for us. To find humor in what scares or horrifies us gives us a psychological edge over the tragedy. This kind of humor has existed in human cultures for as long as we've been writing things down.

Some time ago, I promised a reader I would not picture suicide in my cartoons for the very reason that some of you were offended, and I've kept to that. But I think a cartoon such as this one is so far fetched and the reader is left to wonder/assume what has happened to the woman, that it does not strike the same chord. To me, anyway. One person accused me of being sexist because the cartoon insinuates that all men want when they come home from work is sex from their woman. This cartoon is not about what men want when they come home from work, but that if a man comes home from work and sees his partner's clothing spread seductively in a trail across the floor, 99% of them are going to think of sex. Either she is seducing him, or she has already seduced someone else. It's not insulting, its human nature.

Nude Diving

Bizarro is brought to you today by Moth Lingerie.

I normally blog about my cartoons a week after they have run in the paper, but I've decided to bump this one up in the queue because I've gotten a lot email about it.

The cartoon is meant to be a guy coming home from work and, seeing the trail of clothing, assumes his wife wants to have sex. Instead, she has jumped out the window, presumably to her death.

I didn't realize there would be so many ways to interpret this, but I've heard plenty. Some excerpts:

"Are they his clothes and he can't wait to put them on and then sneak out the window?"

"Is his wife some kind of naked Superwoman?"

"Is his naked wife trying to lure him to the fire escape so he'll be blown up by the TNT on the sofa?"

"There seems to be a syringe on the sofa pillow. Did his wife get high and then jump out the window naked, thinking she could fly?"

More than a few people asked about the firecracker on the sofa pillow wondering if it figured into the joke, a couple thought it was a syringe. If you are among those readers who have never noticed, I hide little symbols like that in virtually all my comics for no good reason. The current list is: Firecracker/dynamite, eyeball, pie, alien, bunny, K2, upside down bird, a man's loafer, a fish tail, a crown, and the exceedingly rare arrow in the back. The number above the signature tells you how many symbols to look for, a la Al Hirschfeld.

That should clear up the mystery. I now return you to a nation mourning the death of Michael Jackson.

Lip Brush With Fame

On occasion I get mistaken for Elvis Costello by people who don't really know what Elvis Costello looks like. They see glasses and a hat and figure I must be him. But now it will be an even more frequent nuisance, because Elvis is sporting a mustache. Damn that look-stealing limey. What next? A cigar?













He has even fashioned his hairline to look like mine, as evidenced in this photo of him doffing his hat at the end of Conan O'Brien's show last night.















For anyone interested in how to accurately tell the difference between myself and Costello in the wild, I offer this brief list of defining characteristics:

1. His hair is longer and wavy, mine is very short
2. The brims of his hats are larger than mine
3. His clothing is expensive, mine is mostly from resale shops and smells of cigars
4. He has Diana Krawl on his arm, I have CHNW (personally, I think I come out ahead on this one)
5. I am the one occasionally mistaken for Elvis Costello, he is the one never mistaken for me.

CAPOOT COMEDY

Woe and behold, my comedy shows next week have been canceled. The producer behind it decided to kill the show, refund ticket sales, and take a loss.




















He's used to producing shows in LA and, not being familiar with the way things work in NY, was not able to get the press and advanced ticket sales as quickly as he had hoped for. Comedy shows in NYC pretty much dry up all summer, as most New Yorkers leave the city: rich folks go to the Hamptons, the rest of us go upstate. Most of what is left is tourists, who have such a wide variety of Broadway shows to go to, they tend not to patronize the offbeat stuff.

He still likes the concept of a comedy show of cartoonists, as do we who were in the show, so we are looking at possibly remounting it later in the year after Little Boy Blue has blown his horn and the sheep return from the meadows.

Just thought you'd like to know. Especially if you are somewhere in Nebraska right now, hitchhiking your way across the country from California, hoping to make it to the Tuesday opening.

Mything the Point

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Post-Closet Veggies.

Since I like to do cartoons based on Bible stories and other common Christian myths, I have been criticized on occasion by atheists who think I am using my cartoons to advance my religious views, and praised at times by Christians who think I am trying to advance theirs. It is hard to imagine a person who would be more likely to believe in a religion because he saw it in the funny papers, but I'm sure they are out there. In truth, I'm doing neither.

I no longer believe the Noah story, of course, but when I was a kid I was taught it was true. As hard as it is to believe, we all know that there are many 21st century adult Americans with high school and college diplomas who are still convinced. I was raised in the Bible Belt and have seen it first hand. (It is also worth noting that most Christians worldwide believe these stories are allegories and not historical accounts.)

Of those who believe the story of Noah's ark is factual, some don't think about it too hard, others perform amazing feats of mental gymnastics to find logical ways in which a person could fit a breeding pair of every single species on the earth onto one boat, along with enough food to keep them all fed for who-knows-how-many months. Others just fall back on the Santa Claus Defense. The Santa Claus Defense is what parents use when their kid asks a logical question like, "How can Santa fit enough toys for every kid in the whole world into one sleigh?" The answer is always, "He's magic." Noah was magic in this same way.

Among my friends in the animal rights movement, some who advocate veganism and believe in the rights of non-human animals, as I do, attempt to reach people who believe in the fundamental truth of Bible stories by finding ways in which the scriptures support the notion that man is "meant" to eat plants, not animals. If you are one of those who are motivated to try this I wish you well, but you can argue scripture with fundamentalists until you are blue in the face because in the end, you are arguing with someone who believes in magic. When that is your premise, you can make up the rules to suit your argument.

I use Bible themes in cartoons because they are well known stories and, since they were written to describe common human dilemmas and traits, are great fodder for cartoons. It is the same reason I use children's fairy tales, Greek myths or famous movie monsters. Most of the time, there is no more complex reason than that.

The Sound of One Hand Inking

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Singing Monks.

Okay, I admit I don't know anything about Zen Buddhism, but the whole "nothingness" thing is a common conception and cartoons are often built on these, whether correct or not.

Like the Moses cartoon from a couple of days ago; several readers left comments on the inaccuracies of my drawing – from the error of having the burning bush and the ten commandments in the same picture to the fact that Moses is wearing shoes on "hallowed ground." I also got a few emails of this sort.

Being neither a Zen Buddhist nor a believer in the historical accuracy of the Bible, I admit that I don't get very nitpicky about these things. I just draw the cartoon in a way that everyone can understand and move on to the next crushing deadline. I don't mind the corrections, by the way. I'm kind of a trivia buff anyway, so I always enjoy a few more tidbits of knowledge.

In spite of this flippant attitude toward history, I actually do try to be more accurate in my cartoons than do most cartoonists. I research historical costumes and such, to get things mostly right, and often look up what certain objects look like to add that extra bit of convincing detail, even though I'm perfectly capable of an approximation out of my own head. But if the accuracy conflicts with the joke, as it would have in the Moses cartoon, I toss it out and use the common misconception instead. Moses talking to a burning bush is immediately understood; Moses talking to a blinding beam of light would have been widely misconstrued to be a scene from Star Trek.

Of the handful of "Zen" cartoons I've done over the years, here is one of my favorites:

Owah Tizdat Toobee

You is bringed to day Bizarro by Satisfactory Discourse.

When I submitted this cartoon weeks ago, I knew it would cause some confusion. Since it appeared in papers a week ago, I've gotten dozens of emails from people who were mystified by it, which means there are many thousands more who were equally out to sea but didn't bother to write.

The cartoon refers to a game we used to play as children, one of those games that only works on someone who has never heard it before. You get them to say these three words – owah, tagu, siam – slowly, like a chant. Then you ask them to go faster, stringing the words together, until they are saying, "oh what a goose I am." Laughter ensues.

This kind of thing comes up from time to time, where I want to do a cartoon based on something I know or have heard or remember, but am not sure how common or widespread the knowledge is. I ask CHNW if she gets it and that's about all the research I do. She got this one and she was raised in Florida (I, in Oklahoma), so I figured I'd give it a try.

In addition to the emails from the dazed and confused, I got nearly as many from people who remembered the game from childhood but hadn't thought of it in years. And also one from a reader who had played a dirty version of the same thing where the end sentence makes reference to the speaker's biological habits.

That's the official report on the Great Basketball Cartoon Conundrum of 2009. Onward and upward.

God in Nature

This is a special posting about an unusual phenomenon called to my attention by a regular reader in Minnesota, whom I'll call "Charles."

It seems that on the day the cartoon below appeared in the paper, Charles saw the face of Jesus in it. He described this to me by email and asked if I'd done it intentionally. I politely told him no and that I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

















He sent me this explanation but I still could not see it and was content to write him off as one of the legions of mentally unbalanced people who follow Bizarro.











Finally, just out of curiosity, I backed way off from the computer and took my glasses off. With the proper distance and blur it came into focus, so to speak.

Below is a version I've doctored with an orange outline which describes the shape I believe he saw. It's a fairly unconventional version of Jesus, but perhaps this is how our Minnesota friend sees him. Or, perhaps "He" just has a wacky side.




















Charles later told me that the morning he witnessed the divine vision he had a bad case of flu and was not wearing his glasses. I couldn't help but wonder how many times this has happened people reading Garfield or Apartment 3G.

Let this be a warning to us all about viewing the funny pages in poor health and without the proper optical aids.


For more images of the almighty, click on the words "God's wrath" in the previous post.
Many thanks to Chuck Strinz for bringing this to my attention. Check out his video production company, Back On The Mississippi and his current PBS project, Museums of Minnesota.

Non-Gay Rainbow Rankings

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hideous Monsters.

The most funnest part of this comic was the drawing. Even though drawings like this are tedious and time consuming, both to research and to draw, I always really enjoy the final product. (For you technique buffs, I should mention that the entire drawing is done with a small brush, even the lettering, and I use no straightedge of any kind.)

I like this gag and its soft parody of the stupendously transparent propaganda tool of the Bushies. As any scientist will tell you, a human's ability to reason is seriously compromised by fear. Ergo, if you keep the people frightened, it takes them longer to figure out you're screwing them. It's an age-old political trick but still works like a charm. Most recently, it worked on Americans for 8 years. Some are still trying it.

I've included the strip version of this one, too, since it required a lot of extra art and fenagling. My favorite part of the strip version is the anatomical heart on the sign in the back. What is that company selling? I have no idea what the Japanese type on all these signs says, I just borrowed stuff from signs I found on the Internets. For all I know, they could say (insert your own joke here.)
(As always, click the image to colossalize it.)

Finally, I got this email from a reader:

How dare you !?!?!

Rodan is easily a higher priority than Mothra. He's older ( released after Godzilla and before Mothra to terrorize us in our movie theaters ), leatherier and gnarleyier.

My sincere apologies to this or any other reader who was offended by my rankings. I was rating them by how often I'd heard their name. I hope that I have not offended Rodan or his followers.

DISCLAIMER: The writer of the above email was not serious, he was actually taking a self-deprecating jab at his own obsession with Japanese movie monsters. Taken out of context, though, it's much funnier. Saying the Security Alert System is a tool of propaganda does not mean I don't there is any danger of another terrorist attack, it is only to say that there isn't anything the average person or society can gain from this rainbow bogeyman thermometer. My apology to followers of Rodan was tongue-in-cheek, if you really were offended by this you need professional help, possibly medication, definitely a girlfriend.