'Tater Tension

Bizarro to you is brought today by Human Ingenuity.

If you are looking for something cool and gnarly to do, put a potato in the closet and wait for a few months. Then look at it again and be amazed by the cool and gnarly tentacles growing off of it. You'll be all like, "Whoa. What's going on here?"

So Mr. & Ms. Potato Head are dealing with that same topic, except her parents are coming over! Time for a shave, Mr. Potato Head. It's the least you can do for the in-laws!

All kidding aside, the Potato Heads are good friends and great sports. Special thanks to them both for helping me out with today's gag. : )

CONTEST TODAY AT 4PM NYC TIME!!!!

IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP IT, SO JUST GET USED TO IT!

Stuffed Lion

Bizarro is brought to you today by Working Class Heroes.

Today is my birthday, happy birthday to me.

It isn't actually the same day of the calendar that I was born, but my "actual" birthday was nothing more than an arbitrary day out of 365, so what difference does it really make? Let's just say it was November 11th and celebrate like it's 1999.

Please send monetary gifts to me via PayPal (I.D...piraro@earthlink.net) or post:
Dan Piraro
c/o King Features
300 W 57th St
15th floor
New York, NY 10019-5238

Thanks in advance to every one of you who sends a gift. My goal is to raise enough by the end of this year to pay off my credit card debt and discover a cure for shopping.

New Library Comics: August 2009

Here are the comics we added to our library collection in August:


Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969- Your brain on Latino comics : from Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez / Austin : University of Texas Press, 2009.

Azuma, Mayumi. Elemental gelade vol. 1 / by Mayumi Azuma. Los Angeles, Calif. : Tokyopop, c2006-

Briggs, Raymond. When the wind blows / New York : Schocken Books, 1982

CLAMP (Mangaka group) Tokyo Babylon : save Tokyo city story vol. 1 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2004.

Cohen, Michael, 1950- Strange attractors nos. 1-5, 7-8, 10, 13 / Bellingham, Wash. : RetroGrafix, 1993-1997

Dixon, Buzz. Serenity vol. 1. New bad girl in town / Uhrichsville, OH : Barbour Publishing ; Chatsworth, CA : Realbuzz Studios, c2005-

Fujita, Maki. Platinum garden vol. 1 / Los Angeles, [Calif.] : Tokyopop, 2006

Ingulsrud, John E. Reading Japan cool : patterns of manga literacy and discourse / Lanham : Lexington Books, c2009.

Izumi, Rei. Hibiki's magic vol. 1 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, 2007-

Kawashita, Mizuki. Strawberry 100%. vols. 1-6 / San Francisco, CA : VIZ Media, 2007-

Knaak, Richard A. Warcraft. The sunwell trilogy vol. 2. Shadows of ice / Los Angeles, CA : TokyoPop, c2005-2007.

Mukai, Natsumi. +Anima vol. 1 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, 2006-

Sakai, Stan. Usagi Yojimbo book 1 / Agoura, CA : Fantagraphics Books, 1987-<1992>

Samura, Hiroaki. Blade of the immortal = Mugen no jūnin vol. 1. Blood of a thousand / Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 1997-

Shimizu, Toshimitsu. Maico 2010 vols. 2-4 / Femont, Calif. : Comics One, 1997-

Tachibana, Yutaka. Gatcha gacha vol. 1 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, 2006-

Taro, Chiaki. Puri Puri vol. 1 / Fremont, Calif. : DrMaster, 2007-

Yamaguchi, Takayuki. Il destino di Kakugo vol. 3 / Bologna : Dynamic Italia, 1998-

Yen plus. v.1 nos. 1-3 / New York, N.Y. : Hachette Bookgroup USA, 2008-

Yo Yo, 1980- Laya, the witch of Red Pooh vol. 1 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2006-


As always, this listing is available as an RSS Feed.

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.