Contest #12 is NOW!

Click on the cartoon contest image below to enlarge and play!

RULES, ETC:
As usual, the upper image is the original cartoon, the warped image beneath it has been changed. Your mission, if you are a groovy dude, chick, both or undecided is to find those differences.

1. There are 15 differences between the two cartoons.
2. NONE of the differences have to do with the warped nature of the second image.
3. ALL of the differences are something missing, added, or moved, not just "bent" from the distortion. The differences will not be too subtle, so once you spot one you should be relatively certain you've found it. (As opposed to something like, "I think that guy has one extra whisker. Hmmm.")
4. FIRST PERSON to correctly list the 15 differences in the comments section of the contest post wins 5 packs of Bizarro Trading Cards, mailed by me personally from Bizarro International Headquarters in Brooklyn. I'll even lick the stamp, unless it's self adhesive. SECOND AND THIRD persons with correct answers will each get 2 packs of Bizarro Trading Cards!
5. Put your email address on your comment so I can contact you if you win. I won't post it or keep it or file it or sell it or mount a Broadway musical about it.

Enjoy, good luck, and may dog bless! Click on the image to enlarge...

Contest #12 LATER TODAY!

Yes, my groovy homies, contest #12 is later today! Go tell it on the mountain.

Here are the rules, which I'll post again with the actual contest. This just gives you a leg up on the competition.

Click the image below to make it huger enough to read.

















Hope to see you then.

Hatred Holidays

Bizarro is brought to you today by Here Come The Holidays.

I'm not one of those people who complain about seeing Santa and hearing Xmas songs before Thanksgiving. I tend to complain that I have to endure these things at all, any time of year, because I truly despise the ugly, crass, festival of insincerity that Xmas has become. This is a holiday that should be celebrated quietly at home, if at all, and those of us who do not celebrate it should not even notice its passing. Like Yom Kippur.

That's the way it was before Washington Irving decided to make up a lot of holiday traditions and promote the idea that Xmas should be a big, noisy, tacky whoop-de-doo. Stores caught onto the idea and helped it along and before you know it, most Americans were celebrating Xmas with gifts and songs and decorations as if it were an ancient tradition.

I'm sure things were more-or-less within reason in those early days, but like everything else modern-day America touches, it is now a ghastly commercial orgy that assaults the eyes and ears of everyone within 500 miles of its borders. I even saw giant Xmas decorations at a department store in a Buddhist country in Asia back in 2000. Apparently you have to go to Iran to escape elves and flying reindeer.

So I say, "Pull that trigger, Mr. Pilgrim, and bury the evidence before it gets out of hand. You have no idea what you're in for."

Yes, I know I'm a huge pain-in-the-ass Grinch/Scrooge about this. All my friends and family gleefully celebrate Xmas while I sit quietly at home without decorations and with the TV mute on, lest I accidentally subject myself to the sound of jingling bells during a Best Buy commercial. (Just typing that made my skin crawl.)

How did I get this way? I have no idea. I enjoyed it as a kid – Santa, toys, the food, the tree, the TV specials, the songs, mom bringing home sailors on holiday leave and making me wait in a box in the basement, the lights and decorations. But as an adult, year by year, I became increasingly uncomfortable with it until I finally snapped like a dry holly branch under the hoof of a plummeting reindeer and declared myself the archenemy of all things Xmas. Self indulgent hypocrisy has always turned my stomach and modern American Xmas is the blaring, screeching, glittering, multi-billion-dollar embodiment of it. To my mind, anyway.

Here's hoping you all have a nice holiday season, please keep the noise down.

A Resounding Yes

Bizarro is brought to you today by Affordable Toupees.

People often ask me if I draw cartoons based on my own experiences. The answer is a resounding, "YES!"

If I had a nickel for every time a woodland creature had warned me about another woodland creature, I'd have $953.72. (Three-fifths of one of the woodland creatures was missing, so I didn't take a full nickel.)

But seriously, folks, illegal drugs are no laughing matter. Many are potentially harmful to your physical and/or mental health, some are even as bad as prescription drugs. So do what the talking squirrel does when he is offered illicit substances of recreational repute: Squeak, bite, and run!

This has been a public service announcement from the United States Department of Career Guidance.

NOTE: Want to look as suave as the dude in this cartoon? Click here for the official Bizarro Icon Line of high-quality schwag!*

*A large percentage of all profits goes to debt collectors. Makes excellent gifts.

Phoebe Gloeckner - Thursday

Artist/Cartoonist/Professor Phoebe Gloeckner will be the featured speaker at the Penny Stamps Lecture Series this Thursday, 5pm at the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor.

If like me you are unable to attend (I have a prior commitment at the Serious Games Expo), the Penny Stamps lectures are available via podcast a few days after they occur.

Huck It

Bizarro is brought to you today by The N Word.

The first time I read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," it was at the behest of a cranky and unforgiving woman named Amanda Benchwhite, my tenth grade English teacher. There was some controversy at the time about this book being used in public schools because of the recurrence of a little thing we now call the "N-word."

But as much as I disliked this particular teacher, she did manage to use this book as a terrific discussion tool about the history of racism in the U.S. This was particularly challenging because our class was roughly half black and half white, so there was no shortage of disparate opinions and potential for conflict. And yet, we came through with a better understanding of each other as a result of discussing the "elephant in the room," instead of pretending it didn't exist.

No, seriously, we had a kid as big as an elephant in that class. I'm not talking about a guy who was six-feet-tall and overweight, I'm talking about a guy who was 12-feet-tall on all fours and weighed several tons. The janitor had to follow him around with a big shovel and a bag of sawdust just to deal with his waste. As if this wasn't distracting enough, he had an incredibly long nose through which he would occasionally let out a deafening trumpeting sound. Oh yes, and it was prehensile. He could pick things up with his nose! No sh*t.

Try reading Twain and grappling with racial tension with that kind of thing going on in the middle of the room. Nigga, please!

New Library Comics: September 2009

Here's a list of the comics we added to our library collection in September:


Action comics. no. 446 / New York, N.Y. : Detective Comics, Inc., 1938-1988

Adams, Neal, 1941- Megalith no. 1 / New York : Continuity Publishing, 1993-1994

Adams, Scott, 1957- Fugitive from the cubicle police / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews and McMeel, c1996

Adams, Scott, 1957- It's obvious you won't survive by your wits alone / Kansas City : Andrews and McMeel, c1995

Adams, Scott, 1957- Journey to Cubeville / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews McMeel Pub., c1998

Adams, Scott, 1957- Seven years of highly defective people : Scott Adams' guided tour of the evolution of Dilbert / Kansas City, Mo. : Andrews McMeel, c1997

Amaya, Shane L. Horns of Hattin / Santa Barbara, CA : Terra Major, 2004

Aragonés, Sergio, 1937- Bat Lash. Guns and roses / New York, NY : DC Comics, c2008

Barr, Mike W. Mantra no. 1 / Westlake Village, Calif. : Malibu Comics Entertainment, 1993-1995

The brave and the bold. nos. 123, 132 / Sparta, Ill. : National Comics Publications, 1955-1983

Cannon, Zander. The replacement god no. 4 / San Jose, CA : Amaze Ink, 1995-

Cosby, Andrew. Enigma cipher / Los Angeles, CA : Boom! Studios, 2008

Farr, Naunerle C. The hunchback of Notre Dame / New York : Marvel Comics Group, 1976

Gerber, Steve, 1947-2008. Foolkiller no. 7 / New York, NY : Marvel Comics, 1990-1991

Gotsubo, Masaru. Samurai champloo vols. 1-2 / Los Angeles, CA : Tokyopop, c2005-

Hedgecock, David. A different pace / San Diego, Calif. : Ape Entertainment, c2004

Hugleikur Dagsson, 1977- Is this some kind of joke? / London : Michael Joseph, 2008

Kōga, Yun, 1965- Earthian no. 2 / [S.l.] : Blu, 2005-

McCay, Winsor. Dream of the rarebit fiend : the Saturdays / West Carrollton, Ohio : Checker Book Pub. Group, c2006

Miller, Frank, 1957- Give me liberty : an American dream no. 1 / Milwaukie, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 1990-1991

Mireault, Bernie. The jam no. 7 / San Jose, CA : Slave Labor Graphics, 1989-1997

Nicholson, Jeff. Lost laughter no. 3 / Chico, CA : Bad Habit, c1993-1994

Perez, Omaha. Bodhisattva / Redondo Beach, CA : OPP/Omaha Perez Productions, c2003

Peters, Matt. Rex Steele : Nazi smasher / New York : Monkeysuit Press, 2004

Rosenberg, Jonathan. Infinite typewriters / New York : Del Rey/Ballantine Books, c2009.

Sibylline, 1978- First time / New York : Eurotica, 2009

Tinkle digest. nos. 2,4,6,8,10,12,30,32,34,37,45,48,52,82,94-98,103-104,107-110,114,116,118,120,126,128,130,132,134,136-140,150,156-157,167,170,172,178-182,209 / Bombay : H.G. Mirchandani for India Book House, [1992?]-

Wood, Brian, 1972- The tourist / Berkeley, Calif. : Image Comics, 2006

Wood, Teri S. Wandering star nos. 8, 10-11, 19 / El Centro, Calif. : Pen & Ink Comics, 1993-1997


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