Menu of Death

Bizarro is brought to you today by Abstinence.

We all spend at least a little time wondering what certain types of death are like. They say drowning isn't as bad as it sounds because you pass out rather quickly, your brain being unable to open your mouth and take in water. Still sounds terrifying to me. Freezing to death is also said to be merciful because you "just fall asleep." But I hate to be cold. What about all those hours or days of misery before you fall asleep?

Beheading seems quick and almost merciful, but I wonder. How long does your brain stay conscious after separation? It's got to be at least a few seconds, right? Are your last thoughts and sights that of being upside down in a basket? Does your neck hurt? If someone picked your head up really fast and turned it toward your body, would you be able to see it?

The most peaceful death would be an overdose of sleeping pills, I suppose. But I also think I would not mind having my head blown off by surprise. Sounds terrible, I know, but let's say I'm walking down the street, whistling a happy tune, I spot an attractive lady in a short skirt carrying a cute puppy and I smile, then my hat explodes. What do I care?

I have often said that if there is ever a major nuclear attack within 500 miles of me, I want to be at ground zero. I'd much rather go up in a flash of light and be done with it than die slowly of radiation poisoning or spend a couple of years in a basement with god-knows-who, eating god-knows-what, wondering WTF? I would rather die than live in a world like that.

Of course, I feel the same way about a Sarah Palin presidency.

Amazon Top 50

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

1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
2 (-). Watchmen
3 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (+2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5 (-1). Final Crisis
6 (+2). Maximum Ride, Vol. 1 Manga (kindle)
7 (-). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
8 (+35). Fruits Basket Volume 23 *
9 (+1). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
10 (-5). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
11 (+3). The Complete Persepolis
12 (-). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
13 (+35). Stephen King's Dark Tower: Treachery
14 (-5). Batman: The Killing Joke
15 (-2). The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders
16 (+7). Mercy Thompson Homecoming *
17 (+1). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
18 (-2). Warriors: Tigerstar and Sasha #3: Return to the Clans
19 (+1). Batman: R.I.P.
20 (+26). V for Vendetta
21 (N). Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Deluxe Edition *
22 (+27). American Born Chinese
23 (+1). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
24 (N). Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns
25 (+9). Naruto, Volume 45 *
26 (-7). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
27 (+6). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
28 (+11). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
29 (-1). The Joker
30 (+2). Starman Omnibus Vol. 3
31 (N). Asterios Polyp *
32 (N). Angel: After The Fall Volume 1
33 (N). Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire
34 (-23). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
35 (-20). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
36 (N). Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, Vol. 23 *
37 (-4). Halo: Uprising
38 (-4). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
39 (N). Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas
40 (N). Sleeper: Season One
41 (N). Star Trek: Countdown TPB
42 (-7). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
43 (N). Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Deluxe Edition *
44 (N). Achewood Volume 2: Worst Song, Played On Ugliest Guitar
45 (N). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
46 (-24). Batman: Year One
47 (N). The Dark-Hunters, Vol. 1 *
48 (-10). Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 2
49 (N). The Arrival
50 (-19). Empowered, Vol. 5

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


Commentary:

* Many of the titles which saw enormously large gains last week (e.g. Buffy titles) see large fall backs this week, and vice versa (e.g. Dark Tower). I wonder if there was some sort of anomaly last week and now we're seeing a correction? But then other titles didn't see any large shifts either week, so who knows?

* Huge gain on the pre-order for the new Fruits Basket, outpacing Naruto & Negima by a good clip.

* Highest debut is Gaiman's Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, and it even brings along the re-re-issue of Alan Moore's Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Both writers are faves of the Amazon Top 50, so look for those two titles to stick around for a while on the charts.

* Last week's big debut, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, is nowhere to be seen this week.

* The recent interest in Green Lantern collections is likely due to the forthcoming Blackest Night series, showing that DM-aimed events can affect the mainstream sales charts.

Help a Brother Out?

I'm a regular columnist for VegNews magazine, writing a column in each issue about the humorous side of vegetarianism and veganism called "Plant-Based Piraro." Once each year, the magazine sponsors a vote for readers' favorite this-and-that.

If you want to help a great cause, go to this page and vote for the following two nominees in these two categories:
Best Animal Sanctuary....Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary
Best Column...Plant-Based Piraro (sample article from last year here)

You have to cycle through the categories to find those two, along the way you can vote for whatever you wish, of course, or nothing. Whatever suits you. At the end, they'll ask for your email address and name, if you provide it you'll be entered to win some prizes, but it isn't necessary if you prefer to remain anonymous.

Thanks, kids. You're "phat," "stoopid" and "sick."

Cunninglinguist

Bizarro is brought to you today by Racist Sexist Sausage.

This cartoon doesn't make literal sense, really, but it amuses me nonetheless. "Nonetheless" is an odd word, created by shoving together three words that people said regularly to make a single word. Other examples are "furthermore," "therefore," and "notwithstanding." Seems kind of random.

Why have we not done this with Iloveyou? Or soanyway? Or yourenotgonnabelievethis, howhaveyoubeen, yourekiddingme, getoffofme, wheresmydamngun, or howmanytimesdoIhavetotellyouIamnotgay?

I don't speak German, but I've heard that language does this a lot.

Untilnexttime...

One Man's Pants, Another Man's Pariah

Bizarro is brought to you today by Athletes in Love.

I've long been amazed by baggy pants fashion. When it first began (back in the early nineties?), I laughed and felt secure in my predictions that it would not last very long. Apparently, I'm no Nostradamus.

As open minded as I like to think I am, I cannot even pretend to understand it. First and foremost, it is uncomfortable to have one's pants falling down all the time. At the very least, you've got to constantly hold them up somehow or you'll trip over them, and god forbid you should have to take off running. It is the sole reason belts and suspenders were invented, for instance. So you could run away and have both hands free for waiving frantically in the air. I am reminded of a scene from a movie I saw once where an outhouse was set afire while a person was in mid-business. He burst out of the door at top speed but only made it a few feet before his chin hit the ground.

Apart from the inconvenience of having to monitor your pants falling off is the obvious ludicrousness of it being the "style" to show your underwear. What has for centuries been the cliche nightmare of people the night before a public speaking engagement, is suddenly the height of cool. When did this happen, exactly? Was I out of the country?

I've done a few cartoons over the years about this topic but I'm still not tired of it. Fifteen years after the trend began, guys are still hobbling around New York City like bowlegged penguins, trying to keep their gigantic pants from falling below their knees, so I'm still drawing cartoons about it. But just when I thought I'd seen the most absurd trend my cockamamie species could possibly concoct, I discovered a behavior even more ridiculous: the passing of laws against it. Apparently, some communities are actually fining and jailing people for a fashion. I won't argue that baggy pants and exposed underwear is an eyesore, but verboten by law? What part of the world do we live in again?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not saying I'm a big fan of really tight pants, either, just so you know.

Gladness

This special Prodigal Son Edition of Bizarro is brought to you by Omnipotent Shipping.

Just got back late last night from the family reunion/wedding in my home state of Oklahoma. It was a harrowing adventure fraught with missed connections, misdirected luggage, airline incompetence, an auto accident, and a roach motel in Memphis whose airport shuttle driver is a former NYC pimp. The family events were even scarier. More about that in the days to come, after I catch up on a deadline or two.

For now, here is a tasty little morsel of cartooning that I hope you enjoy. This isn't one of my preachy environmental cartoons, it's just an amusing visual about what what will happen to all those tiny islands we cartoonists draw in those stranded-on-a-desert-island cartoons we are so fond of, if indeed the sea level rises.

This is a scientifically researched and accurate representation of such a scenario; tiny islands would disappear beneath the surface of the sea. Trees would pierce the surface in many instances, appearing to float. Caption balloons, being attached to their orator by the laws of graphics, would be at least partially obscured.

Climate Change will be as devastating to humor as it will be to flora and fauna.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

Bigby Wolf has been turned into a chimpanzee on Brian Bolland's cover to Jack of Fables #34 (2009).

(Standard disclaimer about how wolves who have been turned into chimps aren't really monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.