Gorilla Suits

Bizarro is brought to you today by Johnny Steele. "That's just my name! I'm made of flesh and blood, just like you!"

I was in Oakland, Californy a couple weeks ago doing a show with my good buddy and far superior stand-up comic, Johnny Steele, and he agreed to let me turn one of his lines into a cartoon. Thanks, Johnny! Say hi to Allison for me.

This cartoon gives you another chance to fill the comment section of this blog with our thoughts about vegan vs. meat-eating lifestyles.

Here are some of my comments, based on the myriad comments on yesterday's blog post, "Chicken Chaser."
Some may not make sense without reading those comments first:

By "meant to eat" I did not mean to imply intent, as in creationism or intelligent design. I should have said "evolved to eat."

Though we are classified as omnivores, human anatomy is ill-suited to eat much meat at all and doesn't need any to be healthy. Consumption of animal products (meat, fish, eggs, dairy) is one huge reason why so many of us die of heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Length of intestines, type of digestive enzymes in our stomachs and saliva, shape of jaws and teeth, lack of physical hunting skills, strong aversion to the sight and smell of a dead animal, are all natural indicators that we are not well-suited to meat eating. True meat-eaters are attracted to that smell.

Someone mentioned the postition of our eyes (front-facing) as that of a predator, not prey (side-facing). Our eyes are that of a creature that needs depth perception for living in trees, not that of a predator. Few primates are true predators, but all have stereoscopic vision. Pandas have stereoscopic eyes but are completely herbivorous.

John Mayer's comments on yesterday's post (Chicken Chasers) best represent my beliefs and knowledge on this subject. Check them out, or go to his site: http://www.vset.net

"Personal choice" is a factor in whether or not you eat meat, of course, and some feel that we veg-heads should leave them alone. I never evangelize in person and try not to do too much of it here, but for those of us who do not believe that humans are inherently more valuable than members of other species, there is a "helpless victim of cruelty" issue that makes it difficult to keep our opinions completely to ourselves. We see animals like most people see human children: subject to the same emotions and needs as adults, but unable to procure them for themselves in all cases. So if I assail you for eating meat, it is born of the same impulse that you might experience toward someone abusing a human child. Our rights end where someone else's begin.

It bears noting that evolution takes millions of years for substantial changes to begin to show. Humans were undoubtedly 99% vegan for the vast majority of our early history, like chimps and gorillas, our closest relatives. It was relatively recently in our evolution that humans began to stray away from the tropics, developed tools and language, and began hunting big game. Recent enough that our bodies have not changed substantially since then. Except in this way.

Enough of the serious stuff. How about this?

Hi, Treason!

I know this is crass but it is also true and funny. A good friend of mine and fellow cartoonist, Michael Capozzola, thought up this gag and I created it in Photoshop from a campaign poster I found online.

Regardless of whether you are liberal or conservative, it is impossible to intentionally argue that Sarah Palin is qualified or in any way suitable to be in charge of the most powerful country on earth. Considering McCain's age and health, it is more than irresponsible to choose her for that office, it is treasonous.

Shiftless Whites

Chicken Chasers

Today's BIZARRO has BEEN brought TO you BY Inappropriate CAPITALIZATION of NORTH America.
I'm a pretty cynical person and don't believe in a lot of hocus pocus. I don't believe in anything "spiritual," the power of crystals, psychic phenomenon, karma, etc.

Nonetheless, I think that many western doctors think they know way more than they do and would be wise to be more open to things like acupuncture, herbal remedies, etc. (I've experienced amazing and permanent results from acupuncture, a process I once suspected was complete nonsense. Some herbal remedies, too.)

Long ago, I eschewed any doctor who does not talk to me like an equal (with an admittedly vastly inferior medical education), explain things to me in ways I can understand, and include me in the decision making process of my treatment.

When my eldest daughter was still less than a year old, a pediatrician told her mother and me that, "she should be eating meat by now." He meant baby food meat, of course, but still.

Our response was something along the lines of, "if she needed meat at this age, wouldn't nature have given her teeth?" He stared at us as though we were disobedient teens and moved on to the next subject.

Unprepared for such idiocy from the mouth of a person in a lab coat, we were dumbfounded and just made our way out of the office, never to return.

My baby's momma and I were not vegetarians or anything of the sort back then, but we were not stupid enough to miss the point that if human infants "needed" meat, they'd have long pointy teeth with which to eat it. Assuming that mechanical blending devices that turn meat into baby-food-like goo did not exist in prehistoric times, that is.

Decades later, I came to realize that if humans of any age "needed" meat, we'd be equipped with hunting tools like claws, fangs, night vision, speed, camouflage, etc. Slow, flat-toothed, stubby-fingered, hairless apes with poor vision and smell make pretty lousy hunters until they figure out tools and language.

Snakes on a Plane

Today's cartoon is brought to you buy Greek Mythological Premises, Inc.

This was neither a Bizarro cartoon, nor one printed in Parade Magazine. I drew this one because I think it's a great joke but never found a place to print it in the U.S. It's been printed in cartoon magazines in Scandinavia, where people do not fear that nudity or sexual humor will lead to the decay of society, but nowhere else that I know of. I show it at comedy shows, as it is one of my favorites from my career and always gets a good laugh.

Taking this premise further, Medusa would also have snakes in her arm pits and on her legs and arms. Gross. And shaving would be even grosser. Let's not talk about it.

End of Minx All Nighter bummer

For me, the biggest bummer of the end of Minx is that David Hahn's All Nighter won't make it out the door before Minx folds. I've been a fan of Hahn since his Private Beach days, so I was really looking forward to this. Hahn says that he's unsure whether it will show up under a different DC imprint, or revert back to him.

I think it would be quite funny if All Nighter ends up being published somewhere else (HarperCollins? Slave Labor?) and outsells the other Minx titles as a result!

Amazing Grace

Bizarro was made possible today by Cats, Firemen, Birds, Ink, Computers, and Language.

Most of my cartoons just come from some intangible place in my head, a black box in the rafters of my mind's garage, a vault buried deep beneath my soul's grain silo. But this cartoon is one of those rare ones that is entirely autobiographical.

When I was a child, I had a black and white cat that was accidentally blinded in a lab accident. I had a chemistry set I enjoyed playing with and although I had been warned of mixing chemicals haphazardly, I was an intrepid child and frequently pushed the limits of the physical world. One day, I poured a bottle marked, "Do Not Mix This With Acid" into a bottle marked, "Acid." I knew as soon as I rotated my wrist that I'd made a terrible mistake.

Before I could even shield my face, the newly mixed fluids exploded like bitter enemies. But just as the searing fluid would have hit me in the face, my cat leapt in front of me and took the scalding blow himself. He lived, but lost both of his eyes.

For years he lived with me, completely blind, and would feel his way around the house and the surrounding yards. Just as sighted cats will often do, he would occasionally climb to the top of a tree and have trouble coming down. I routinely would climb up to rescue him, it seemed the least I could do for a friend who had sacrificed his own eyesight for mine.

One day, when I was around 12, he was trapped at the top of the enormous pecan tree in our front yard as black storm clouds and flashes of lightening tumbled toward us. I just barely heard his plaintiff cries over the growing wind and prepared to climb the tree to save him. As I stepped gingerly from one branch to another, I soothed him with my voice. "I'm coming, Steve. Hang on. It's okay."

I was only ten-or-so feet off the ground when my foot became wedged in the crotch of a huge tree branch. Though I struggled with the fury of a Norse god, I could not pull it free. The storm approached, the wind got louder, the lightening closer. I glanced up at my terrified, blind cat, perhaps 65 feet in the air, clinging desperately to a branch as the wispy fingers of the tree swayed violently to and fro. "Hang on, Steve!" I shouted over the now gale-force winds. "Don't let go!"

I turned my attention once again to my shoe, pinned in the fork of the branch like a debutante against the back seat of a car, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something unbelievable. It was Steve, of course, being lowered gently by a squadron of birds. The look on his face was one of relief, gratitude, and astonishment.

I, too, was relieved and astonished to see him safe on the ground and heading for the house, so much so that I had forgotten that a huge storm was bearing down on me while I was still trapped ten feet off the ground.

Just then, as though the day had not already been amazing enough, along came a millionaire CEO of a crooked financial firm with a saw and a ladder. He immediately began sawing the branch away near my foot, until I was free, then helped me down the ladder. Before I could even thank him, he returned from whence he came without asking for any compensation whatsoever.

In a single day, I saw birds rescue a cat from a tree and a ruthless multi-millionaire perform an altruistic act. I have never seen either since, but having witnessed it once restored my faith in the goodness of this world in a way that lasted well over a week.