Toss Me a Bone

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Magic of Matrimony.

Today's offering is one of the stranger concepts I've bothered to turn into a Sunday comic. I got a few emails about it, not a lot. A couple people really loved it, though I'm not sure what about it they loved, exactly, a couple of people didn't understand it.

As for myself, I like the strangeness of it and the goofy drawing of the horse, but that's about all I can say. In retrospect, I wonder if I should have had the wiggly horse walking, come upon a skeleton, then in the final panel the skeleton is gone and the horse is trotting rigidly off thinking "much better." That might have made a more complete joke.

But when I wrote this, I was thinking of the cliche skeleton in the desert and thought it might be funny to have that skeleton belong to a living, flacid animal, rather than a dead one. As though it had wondered off.

That's it. No more depth of reasoning or meaning than that.

Special thanks to you readers who stopped by my table at the MoCCA Art Festival in NYC yesterday, where I was doing sketches for charity. Today I'll be at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn, perusing the goods. If you spot me and say "Gimee Pie," I'll give you a free pack of Bizarro trading cards!!!!!

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.

Bottleful of Messages

Bizarro is brought to you today by Sexy Killers.

I like finding new twists on cartoon cliches, like the man-on-a-desert-island theme, so I'm proud of this one.

I'm way behind on work and life and everything else, so I can't write much today. My week of comedy shows is coming up in a few days and I've got to get crackin'.

Just did an interview today for a show on Sirius XM satellite radio that will air sometime soon, but not sure when. The host, Mark Seman, is a great guy, we had a fun chat and I think it will make for interesting listening if you have that technology. I think the show is called "Getting Late" and also the term "Raw Dog" is somehow pertinent. If you're into that stuff, maybe you know when it's on. I can't find it on the Google.

Amazon Top 50

Here are the Top 50 Graphic Novels on Amazon this afternoon. All the previous caveats apply.

1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
2 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
3 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (-). Watchmen
5 (-). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
6 (+2). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 3: Century, No. 1: 1910
7 (-1). The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders
8 (+6). Final Crisis *
9 (-2). Star Trek: Countdown TPB
10 (-1). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
11 (+6). Batman: The Killing Joke
12 (+9). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
13 (-3). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
14 (+10). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
15 (-2). Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha #3: Return to the Clans *
16 (+10). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
17 (-5). Stephen King's Dark Tower: Treachery
18 (-2). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
19 (-8). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
20 (N). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972
21 (+9). Thor, Vol. 2 *
22 (-3). Bone: One Volume Edition
23 (-5). V for Vendetta
24 (N). Batman: Year One
25 (N). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5) *
26 (+22). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
27 (+2). Blueberry Girl
28 (N). Berserk Volume 29
29 (N). Star Wars: Vector Volume 2 - Chapters 3 & 4 *
30 (N). Trinity Vol. 1
31 (-). Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 3
32 (-9). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
33 (N). Wrapped-Up FoxTrot: A Treasury with the Final Daily Strips
34 (-1). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
35 (N). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
36 (N). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb *
37 (N). Nevermore *
38 (-18). Bleach, Vol. 27
39 (+1). The Complete Persepolis
40 (N). The Dark-Hunters, Vol. 1 *
41 (N). American Born Chinese
42 (N). Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure!, Volume 4
43 (N). Buffy The Vampire Slayer Omnibus Volume 7 *
44 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
45 (N). Escape from the Forest (Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha, No. 2)
46 (N). X-Force Vol. 2: Old Ghosts *
47 (N). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
48 (-20). The Joker
49 (N). Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 7
50 (N). Ouran High School Host Club, Volume 12


Items with asterisks (*) are pre-order items.


Commentary:

* While the top of the list remains relatively stable, the bottom shows a lot of debuts this week.

* Kind of surprised to see pre-orders for Final Crisis moving up into the top 10. Also surprised to see Trinity showing up on the list. I suspect that these are just regular super-hero readers grabbing up Amazon-level discounts.

* Upward movement with Buffy titles, no doubt due to the 5th volume becoming pre-orderable.

* I'm always surprised when backlist titles such as Batman: Year One and American Born Chinese suddenly pop up on the list for no discernible reason.

* Looks as though The Photographer may have some legs after all. We'll see if it holds up over the next few weeks.

Smelly Sexy

Bizarro is brought to you today by King Tut.

This cartoon is simple wordplay, yes, but it makes me smile. It was dreamed up by my cartoonist, stand-up comic, long-time friend, Mike Capozzola.

What struck me as odd when I was drawing this cartoon is the way "pharaoh" is spelled, which I had never really noticed before I had to letter it by hand. How did the second "a" get thrown in there ahead of the "o?" I'm a fan of etymology (and also entomology, but that's a topic for a different post) but I don't know why this strange spelling exists. Usually, a foreign word that comes from a language with a different alphabet, like a Chinese word, for instance, is likely to be spelled phonetically in English. But that would mean that the word was originally pronounced "fay-ray-oh." Maybe that's the case, I don't know, or maybe it didn't come from the original Egyptian word. I could look it up, but it would cut into my leisure time.

Apparently, chemical compatibility is a huge indicator for sexual attraction. In other words, whether you're aware of it or not, you like the way your lover smells. I have experienced this myself on a few occasions (in my bachelor days) when a woman I was attracted to became instantly less attractive when I kissed her. It wasn't that she wasn't a good kisser, but something about the visceral experience of being that close was unappealing.

I knew a redneck guy from Oklahoma years ago who believed so ardently in the idea that women react sexually to a man's pheromones, that he would not bath regularly, confident that his B.O. would help him score. No, I'm not kidding. He even recommended this technique to his teenage sons.

But who am I to judge? Perhaps in his remote corner of Oklahoma, it worked.

For those of you keeping scorecards at home, I'm feeling much better today. The soupy, black miasma of depression left me midway through last evening and I'm normal again. Then I had a very good session with my therapist this morning which helped me to get a better grip on my issues and their effect on my will to live. I'm also extremely appreciative of all the comments readers have left on this blog, and supportive emails I've gotten since yesterday. This blog is sometimes as good a therapy as my visits to my shrink, and considerably cheaper.

You've made me feel like a pretty girl at the prom, and I thank you.

When Hairy Met Harry

Bizarro is brought to you today by Family Entertainment.

Not much to say about this cartoon today, feeling really low. If I was a twitterer, I could tweet, "feeling really low today." But I'm not, you're all I have.

A trusted friend (Julie) said I should get on the Twitter because it's a really easy way to advertise my comedy shows and stuff, and I'm sure she's right, but I just don't have the energy to get started. I have no interest in that sort of thing outside of the promotional value, to be honest, and as I said, I'm feeling low.

Just thought of something to say about this cartoon. I was channel surfing the other night and came across one of the early Bruce Lee movies – Way of the Dragon or Get in the Dragon or Dress Like a Dragon. Something like that. In the final fight scene, he's practicing his pajama arts on a young and shirtless Chuck Norris. This was before Chuck discovered body waxing because he was as covered with hair as the guy in the "after" part of my cartoon. No exaggeration. He had big, thick, hair epaulets on his shoulders.

I hope I'm better tomorrow. Damn this difficult life.

Pie or Palimony?

Bizarro is brought to you today by Marriage Counseling.

I don't have a lot of time to post today as I'm a day-and-a-half behind on my cartoon deadlines this week. If I don't get on the move, I'm going to be working kid's birthday parties dressed like the amusing fellow in this cartoon.

I could say a ton about counseling, I'm a big fan of it both for individuals and couples. I don't know how people get through life without it. Couples counseling can be a serious drag, but it can work wonders, too. Then again, so can breaking up. Depends on what your problems are.