Friday Night Fights: Catwoman vs. Repro

From Catwoman #79 (2008). Story by Will Pfeifer. Art by David Lopez & Alvero Lopez. Click pic for larger.

Ladies Night? Definitely.

Ouija Wonders

Bizarro is brought to you today by the power of suggestion.

I love this idea to death and wish I could claim it completely. A very clever friend of mine named Cliff, sent the pun idea to me. I dropped it into this scenario and voila, I smiled. I'm still smiling all these weeks later.

This appeals to me not only because it is funny but it touches on satirizing military brutality. For those of you inclined toward the warmer-colored part of the political scale, I am not saying that all military personnel are brutal. Don't Dixie Chick me. (Or, do. I could use the publicity.)

Torture is brutal, however, and from what I've read, yeilds unreliable results since virtually any person on earth will say or do whatever it takes to make the torture stop. Including lying. My guess is that Ouija boarding would gather as dependable results as water boarding.

Which makes me wonder if the military has ever tried hypnotism. They could interrogate prisoners at night, on stage, thus both gaining information and entertaining the troops. And if they can't get the subject to tell them where Bin Laden is, they could at least get him to cluck like a chicken or imagine he is a beautiful woman and sashay about the stage to peals of laughter from the audience.

Some of our top government officials have said that they do not consider water boarding to be torture. I'd personally pay a lot to see that theory tested first hand.

MySpace MyDog

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Unique Pets for Unusual People.

This cartoon isn't about hating MySpace, but I do, with a passion, so that's what I'm going to rant about.

I was talked into getting a MySpace page few years ago by a PR person who felt it was a good way to market comedy shows and books and such. She was right, people have had success with that, but I found that web site to be so badly designed, counter intuitive, and unfathomably annoying in all respects, that I gave it up within weeks. The thing operates like a video game with no rules or plot, designed by a drunken toddler.

A business partner of mine now monitors my MySpace page. It is the only element of the vast Bizarro empire that I don't look at myself, so don't write to me there unless you want to hear from my pal, Rey.

I know that people of all ages are into MySpace, but let's face it, it's mostly for kids and 20-somethings. It isn't meant for adults to understand, much the way gangsta rap isn't meant for suburban whites.

If I may be immodest for a moment (do I dare?), what I really like most about this cartoon is the dog's face on the left. I usually draw dogs more like the one on the right, but I decided to get all artsy-fartsy this time and try a different type. I'm very happy with the way the pug turned out.

One last note: I once knew a middle-aged man who was dating a girl in her early 20s. He found himself asking her why she hadn't put his picture on her MySpace page. If you find yourself in this situation, not having your picture on her MySpace page may not be your biggest problem.

Smelly Horses

Proceeds from today's Bizarro will be donated to Horses Against Gravity, a 501c3 organization.

I suspect that a lot of people under a certain age will not have gotten this joke. I never know for sure, so when I consider a gag like this one I have to decide whether I want to use it or not. Usually I decide to go for it, as I've learned over that years that my readers usually enjoy a challenge and don't mind not getting all the gags.

This one isn't really a challenge, though, it's just a reference to a TV commercial for Aqua Velva aftershave which was ubiquitous in the 60s and 70s. As I recall, the commercial was basically just attractive women getting all gooey over a guy who walks by at a party, office, or bar and smells good. The tag line was, "There's just something about an Aqua Velva man."



And that "something" was, since Aqua Velva was a cheap drugstore aftershave, that he wasn't a man who spent much on his grooming. So if thriftiness turns you on, you'd go for him in a big way. You might also dig his Sears leisure suit and Payless vinyl shoes. (As an ethical vegan, I don't wear leather shoes either, but then I'm sort of a cheapskate, too.)

Not that it has anything to do with this cartoon, really, but it seems that most little girls have a thing for horses. I can only assume adult women like horses, too, but I'm not sure. I'll resist making any comments about having something strong and silent between their legs (well, no, I guess I didn't resist making that comment) but I do wonder what the reason is. Is it their beauty, their power, their long, luxurious, style-able hair? That also describes Fabio, and he scares the crap out of all the little girls I know.

As for aftershave, I'm not a person who enjoys synthetic smells so I don't wear any of that smelly stuff. I prefer to be natural, so after I shower, I rub my body with one of my favorite natural scents.

Blogging About Not Blogging blah blah blah...

Yeah, it's going to be a while more before this blog resumes regular posting. Among other joys, I've been summoned for jury duty next week.

In the meantime, enjoy my review tweets in the sidebar or at my Twitter feed. (Over 1000 review tweets and growing!)

Special Offer!

(Hey, boys and girls! Click the cartoon above and see how big it gets!)

If you've been dying to get this image on a T-shirt and simultaneously help out a worthy cause, here is your chance! A cool new company who gives the profits from this shirt to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, and is ludicrously concerned with ethical manufacturing is offering it NOW. Yes, you read that correctly, N-O-W.

http://www.eco-gear.ca/eco-gear-shop/EcoWear-AlienRescue-GT01.html

Here's how they describe their thing:
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In keeping with their corporate mantra of planet, people and animals, incredible ecogear is the first apparel brand to work directly with non profits and environmental groups by dedicating special tees to nominated groups."

Do it! You need the good karma.

Chalk Art

Today's Bizarro cartoon is brought to you by the Lascaux, France Chamber of Commerce.

Perhaps not one of my best comics ever, but it was done during a time a couple months ago when I was having a lot of personal problems and my head was a mess, so I think it's perfectly acceptable. I mentioned this "rough patch" on a few earlier blogs and a lot of you wrote to me with support, which was very appreciated. The worst thing about being a cartoonist (and I fully admit there are not many bad things about this job and I feel quadruply blessed to be making a living at it) is trying to come up with material when you're suffering. Whether you've got double-barreled flu, your dog just died, or your wife ran off with a transvestite, sitting down to be funny on days like that is like a cold water enema.

But back to the subject at hand, I'm a fan of cave paintings. They are among the earliest examples of the human compulsion to create. Though they are primitive by definition, they are, in my opinion, among the most sophisticated efforts at animal renderings ever created. The creators of these works understood so much more about their ecosystem than you or I could ever hope to. They were up to their eyeballs in it, it crawled into their beds at night, it lived in their hair. Knowledge of the flora and fauna they lived among was a matter of life or death.

And we have Animal Planet.

If future archaeologists find only one piece of art that I have drawn about my life, I hope it's the bottle of scotch and cigar that I drew with chalk on the sidewalk in front of my building. Some loves last forever.