Pat on the Back

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hard Knocks Disco. "Life can be cruel. Dance."

I got a lot of mail from an organization called M.O.T.H. (Mothers of Teenage Hunchbacks) about this cartoon. They made a good point: Hunchbacked children suffer greatly at the hands of their peers – kids being the unrepentant puppets of Satan that they are – and making fun of them in the comics is a slap in the face that they just don't need.

If any hunchbacked children – or "differently-postured children," as they prefer to be called – were hurt by this cartoon, I sincerely apologize. Until I started getting mail from M.O.T.H., I thought that hunchbackism was a fictional malady, like vampirism or erectile dysfunction. I stand corrected.

But the news for these kids isn't all bad. Some companies are actually catering to differently-postured children, and I commend them. (Of course, the rotting carcasses they serve at places like that destroy the environment and damage the child's health, but at least they get a plastic toy.)

Some companies have even issued special toys for differently-postured kids, showing them hitting it off with hot chicks and palling around with so-called "normal" people. Again, my respect for such efforts.

Some professional sports figures have played entire games with the posture of the differently-postured, in an attempt to raise awareness that these kids can do anything anyone else can do. (Except, perhaps, walk across a room with a book balanced on their head, but who ever needs to do that anyway?)

So I'd like to say thanks to M.O.T.H. for opening my eyes to a segment of our society of which I was not previously aware, and also, hats off and a pat on the back to differenty-postured kids everywhere!

Sphinx Sphincters

Today's Bizarro was made possible by the Feline Proctological Association.

People often ask me how I come up with cartoon ideas. My routine response is that the vast majority of my ideas occur to me while watching one of my cats clean herself.

This idea, however, did not result from that activity. Instead, it came to me when I read an email from my teenage colleague, Victor, in which he attached a cartoon idea of his about the original sphinx prototype being in an embarrassing position. I liked the idea, added my inimitable professional touches (i.e.; redrew it haphazardly in my style and added some lame dialogue) and signed my name. If you know Victor, don't tell him. He's just a kid, so how much can happen, but still.

When Victor and I work together, I often feel like a crime fighter with a young sidekick, though I hope we would look better in our tights than they did in that last link. I don't know who our nemesis would be, maybe Jim Davis and Garfield? In my world, he's much scarier than The Penguin. Except in this case.

Beauty Pageant

Today's Bizarro cartoon is brought to you by the contents of this guy's purse.

Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, truer words were never spoken. Some find beauty in hot dudes in the desert, others in contact lenses for sports fanatics. I find beauty in hot babes on vintage scooters, for instance.

I used to be embarrassed by the fact that I am so enamored with physical beauty. It is virtually impossible for me to have a romantic relationship with a woman that I don't find physically beautiful. I know that beauty is no substitute for personality, charm, intelligence, humor, compassion, creativity, gymnastics skills, etc., and so I must have those things, too, in order to consider an intimate relationship. It cuts the field of candidates down quite a bit, I can tell you.

But now, in my declining years, I have come to understand that it is simply the way I am wired. A person has no more control over their sexual proclivities than the colors they find attractive or fragrances they enjoy. For instance, the most beautiful, charming, intelligent, creative, compassionate, educated woman in the world could walk up to me stark naked and ask me to take her home, and if she smelled like a full litter box, I would turn her down. I'm one of those people who does not like the smell of a litter box, and I have to accept that in myself.

I am, however, completely perplexed by some couples I see. I wonder how does "he" find "her" attractive, or vice versa. It's all in the eye of the beholder. And it is good to remember that somewhere out there are people wondering how the woman I'm with finds me attractive or vice versa.

Well, probably not vice versa very often. I'm no George Clooney.

Speaking Good

Bizarro has been brang to you today by the Institute of Well Grammar. "We speak gooder, so can you, to."

This has nothing to do with today's cartoon, but I don't have much to say about today's cartoon. Instead, let's talk about bad grammar. When done casually, it makes a person seem uneducated. Our current President is a perfect example. When done with real panache, it can be sublime.

Sort of the like financial issues: if you screw up a little, you lose money and/or go to jail, if you screw up monumentally and take half the world with you, the government will bail you out and you can be rich again. God bless us everyone.

For fun with bad english, go to Engrish.com. I warn you not to visit until you have some time to waste, I've gotten lost in that web site for hours.

Pale Prez

The creators of this site have done something really fun. It's a pic with invisible clickable links and voices that imagine a Sarah Palin presidency. Worth a quick visit, don't forget to move your cursor around the photo and find the hidden links.And turn your sound on. http://palinaspresident.com/

Fantasy and Science Fiction/Theory Reading Group

Last night was the annual book selection meeting for the Fantasy and Science Fiction/Theory Reading Group to which I belong. Once a year we meet to decide what the books will be for the coming year; basically everyone brings a few recommendations, makes pitches, and then we vote. It's kind of like a cage match; no one can leave until we've selected the books for the year.

It's become a tradition to use one selection for a graphic novel; four years ago we did The Dark Knight Returns; three years ago we did Seaguy & We3; two years ago we read Charles Burns's Black Hole; and this past year we read Bone.

Our graphic novel selection for next year was my recommendation, Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991.

I also got two of my prose recommendations on the slate: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett; and The San Veneficio Canon by Michael Cisco.

Our other prose selections are: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell; Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow; The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares; The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland; The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas; The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex; and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.


Our other book club, the Graphic Narrative Discussion Group, continues to meet as well. Tomorrow we meet to discuss Joe Sacco's Palestine. The selection meeting for that group will be in January.

Shootin' Thangs

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Arrogant A--hole Fashions of Beverly Hills.

I usually feature the comic that ran in papers one week previous to a given date, but I'm not that fond of the one I ran last week on this day, so I'm posting this one instead.

This was not published in Bizarro, but will be published in a Swedish comic book doing an issue about biodiversity. They asked me to do a full-page comic on the theme of endangered species and this is what I submitted.

If you're very young or extremely poorly educated, you may not recognize the literary conceit. It is from old Agatha Christie-style crime novels (Perhaps Christie invented this motiff, I dunno) where the British constable or inspector calls all the suspects from the book (or movie) into a lavish Victorian drawing room and announces he knows who the killer is and that he is in this room. Everyone in attendance gasps, the camera pans around the room as each face looks suspiciously at the others (unless it's a book, in which case there are no cameras or faces, you just have to imagine it, which is a lot of brain effort and could account for why books are less popular than movies in some areas of our country, especially the ones with large Palin rallies) then the inspector recounts the crime step-by-step and eventually exposes the killer.

At this point, everyone grabs the killer and subdues him, or he darts for a door and a bobby (British for "cop") is waiting on the other side to arrest him. This is the polite and bloodless (British for "non-American") way the British catch criminals.

If this method were tried in modern-day America, the detective would call everyone into a bleak white, flourescent-lit room full of folding chairs and lock the doors. He would shout for all the motherf-ckers to shut the f-ck up because he knows who the killer is and he's going to pop a cap in his a--. At this point, the killer would produce two large handguns and, rotating his wrists 90º so that the guns were laying over on their sides, cross his arms, jump high into the air, and shoot wildly as he summersaulted over the small group of unsavory street scum. People would scatter, guns would be drawn, flashes of gunpowder would fill the room, and a car would crash through a wall. The killer would jump onto the hood and, while hanging onto the windshield wipers with the toes of his shoes, spray the room with bullets, causing an explosion, as the car continued through the next wall, down the hall and into the street for his getaway.

If I were a cop in America, I'd start by keeping an eye on young people with unusual gymnastic skills.