Prison Fun for the Whole Family

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Charming Garden Statuary.

I used to love zoos, but now I despise them. I know that the human brain is a unique product of evolution (or creation, if you're of that camp) and other animals are not as complex as we, but in emotional ways, other species are far more similar to us than they are dissimilar. It's easy to miss, but if you get to know a non-human animal it becomes apparent quickly. Anyone who has made friends with a dog knows in their gut that there are emotions behind that slobbering muzzle. Other species are no different.

I no longer think that imprisoning any animal for purposes of entertainment is morally defensible. If I were dictator of the world, I would ban zoos, SeaWorld, circuses with animals, etc. There are always ways to entertain oneself without victimizing someone else.

Some argue that zoos give the public face-to-face appreciation for animals that help them to protect them in the wild. Personally, I think that is a cop-out. I don't need to visit an Indonesian orphan behind bars in a zoo to know I shouldn't buy products made by ones being enslaved in Jakarta. If a person has a conscience, they don't need the personal experience to understand an injustice, if they do not, the visit to the zoo doesn't help anyway.

Modern, "nice" zoos are not much better than archaic ones. No matter how nice your house is, if you're not allowed to leave it for the rest of your life, you go nuts.

All this is just my radical opinion, take it for what it is worth. I like to think that other animals are here with us, not for us. Accordingly, I won't do (or subsidize being done) anything to a non-human animal that I wouldn't do to a human child. Surprisingly, I don't find that I'm missing a lot. Here's a page I wrote in 2003 about my relatively late-in-life conversion to this way of thinking, if you're interested.

Sorry for the lack of humor in today's posting. Here's something funny to make up for it.

Don't Fear the Squeaker

Bizarro is brought to you today by Sexy Eternal Bozo.

Over the course of my career, I've done a lot of clown gags. I also fear and loathe clowns. Since my cartoons don't criticize clowns this may seem like a contradiction, but I see it more as a subconscious way of conquering my fears. Perhaps if I draw clowns often enough I will no longer fear them.

Nah. I'll always loathe clowns.

If you are a clown, please do not be offended. This is my problem, not yours. As I explained to my therapist a few years ago, it started when I was a child of perhaps three or four years. One of my earliest memories is of a visit to the circus, where I saw a clown that I particularly liked. My parents bought me a doll that looked like the clown, I suppose from a souvenir vendor at the circus, and I took it home. It was a constant companion until a few weeks later when it came to life and murdered my entire family. I escaped by hiding in a potted plant where I was discovered by authorities days later, paralyzed with fear.

I spent the rest of my childhood in a Catholic orphanage where I also learned to hate nuns.

So here's a clown cartoon. I love Smart Cars and enjoy drawing them. And although I hate clowns, I really enjoy drawing them, too.

Monkey Covers

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

The cover to Kobra #3 (1978) features a giant cyborg gorilla with a jet pack. You may ask why after such a cover they even bothered to make comics any more, since there is nothing that can possibly match a giant cyborg gorilla with a jet pack for sheer awesomeness; I would not be able to give you a satisfactory answer.

(Standard disclaimer about giant cyborg gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Sketchbook-a-go-go

Bizarro is brought to you today by Irrefutable Evidence.

(To see more detail, click on each image to enlarge)

Instead of posting one of my published cartoons today, I thought it might be fun to post a few random pages of sketch book stuff. Perhaps I am wrong.

These images are drawn without any plan or goal, just taking a pen to paper and drawing whatever comes to mind. There is no pencil sketch first or reference to draw from, just whatever comes out of the end of the pen. These are all about 5"x7".

These are my favorite kinds of drawings to do, but unfortunately there's no money in it.

One might be inclined to say, "Dan, wouldn't it be cool to put all of these in a book?" to which I would say, "Yes, cool, but I'd be lucky to sell enough to fill the glove box of a Smart Car."




Wouldn't it be great if we could all make a living just doing whatever what we want? I vote for that option.















P.S. I should also mention that these drawings have nothing to do with drugs or alcohol. I can only do this sort of thing when straight and sober.

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: Dog Days
2 (-). The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
3 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
4 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
6 (-). The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
7 (+1). Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
8 (+1). Watchmen
9 (+3). Bloom County Complete Library Volume 1
10 (+20). Stitches: A Memoir
11 (-). Dilbert: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar
12 (-5). Tales from the Crypt #8: Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid *
13 (-3). Predators and Prey (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 5)
14 (+12). V for Vendetta
15 (+10). Batman: The Killing Joke
16 (+6). Asterios Polyp
17 (+1). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1974 Box Set
18 (-3). The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
19 (R). The Best American Comics 2009
20 (-6). Masterpiece Comics
21 (N). The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook
22 (+6). R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country
23 (-6). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
24 (R). The Arrival
25 (R). Batman: Year One
26 (-10). Vampire Knight, Vol. 8
27 (R). The Complete Far Side 1980-1994
28 (-9). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
29 (R). The Complete Persepolis
30 (N). Wolverine: Old Man Logan *
31 (R). The Stonekeeper's Curse (Amulet, Book 2)
32 (N). Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Volume 7 - Dueling Ambitions
33 (-20). Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds HC
34 (+10). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
35 (R). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days *
36 (+1). Fables Vol. 12: The Dark Ages
37 (N). Criminal (Deluxe Edition) *
38 (R). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
39 (-8). The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics
40 (R). Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink': A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
41 (-20). Simon's Cat
42 (R). Dark Tower: Treachery
43 (-4). Mercy Thompson Homecoming
44 (N). Warriors: Ravenpaw's Path #1: Shattered Peace *
45 (N). Bone Volume 1: Out From Boneville
46 (-26). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
47 (+2). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4)
48 (-12). Tumor Chapter 1 (kindle)
49 (R). Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume
50 (-23). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

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

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* It's relatively quiet at the top of the chart, with the exception of Stitches leaping back up into the top 10 after last week's momentary blip.

* The highest debut belongs to Eleanor Davis's The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, a graphic novel I wager very few of us were even aware of. It's a good reminder of the secret comic book economy...

* Marvel have a relatively good week, with Wolverine: Old Man Logan debuting at #30, Criminal (Deluxe Edition) debuting at #37, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dark Tower: Treachery returning to the list.

* The only manga title to chart is Vampire Knight, Vol. 8.

Halloween Redux

Bizarro is brought to you today by Belated Holidays.

Since I post my cartoons about a week after they appear, these cartoons from Halloween weekend seem conspicuously tardy. So just pretend you're reading them a week ago and you're putting the finishing touches on your Shrek costume in today's blog.

I love love love the Sleepy Hollow gag and wish I'd written it. But, alas, it came from my good friend Richard Cabeza (funniest spanglish name ever). He can be a real genius sometimes, and at this very moment his wife is expecting a baby or some reasonable facsimile. Thanks for the gag, Dick, and good luck to all involved with that baby business.


The Frankenstein gag is okay, I guess. I'm not crazy about it, but it's a good picture and has a monster theme. I've done some better Frankenstein gags in the past, which if I had any kind of reasonable filing system I'd be able to show you a few now. I hate myself sometimes.

In case you didn't know, Sleepy Hollow is a real town beside the Hudson River just north of New York City. Washington Irving wrote a lot about New York City and the surrounding areas, he popularized usage of the term "Knickerbocker" for New Yorkers and is also responsible for the myths about Manhattan being bought from the Indians for twenty-something dollars and a handful of trinkets, as well as the one about Christopher Columbus trying to prove the world was round. Both appeared in Washington's works of fiction but eventually were incorporated into elementary school history classes.

Scary.

WINNERS OF CONTEST #10!!!

The winner of contest #10 is Chris Bulock, whose email did not appear in his/her entry. (So leave it in the comments section of this posting, Chris, and I won't publish it.)

Second place goes to Spyra.

Third place goes to Aftersox.

Debbie P, you were damn close, with the second entry in the comments section and all of your answers were correct but YOU ONLY HAD 14! I hate it when that happens. I should send you a consolation prize.

Thanks to all who played our idiotic little game, your trading cards will be zooming toward you soon, with my DNA all over them!

Correct answers this week:
1. “heAded” vs. “heEded”
2. eyeball on leader’s hat looking other way
3. real hand vs. hook hand
4. front child’s beard
5. troop vs. poop
6. second child wearing lady’s shoe
7. fifth child has banana on hat
8. snake around third child’s stick
9. second boy with arrow in butt
10. fourth boy with xxx jug
11. fourth boy with glasses
12. fifth boy with watch
13. sixth boy with lizard tongue
14. seventh boy with pipe
15. final boy’s bird beak