Book Suggestion

Fairly often, someone will write to me asking how to go about shifting to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. There is tons of info on the web for this, but a good friend of mine has produced a terrific book that has everything you'd need to get started and live the good life.

Both those who are leaning in this direction but have yet to make the leap and those who've been in the camp for a while can find an endless list of helpful resources in this book. Great for holiday gifts.

Buy it here.

Magical Time of Year

Bizarro is brought to you today by The War on Christmas.

Today's cartoon is from this time last year and is one of my favorites. I like the gag but I also like that people on both sides of the holiday fence can relate to it.

Long before I was interested in politics I wondered about the contradiction of "separation of church and state" and national holidays like Xmas. Constitutionally, this is clearly not a "Christian nation," as so many right-wingers are fond of calling it, but at the same time we have many laws and government customs that are based entirely on Christianity. Maybe there is a reason other than the Bible that I'm missing, but why can't a person have more than one legal spouse, as long as all spouses are consenting adults? Why is Xmas a legal holiday for government workers, but Yom Kippur is only a holiday if you're Jewish? And the most significant current example of course, is our denial of basic rights to gay couples.

Each year I get one of those Christmas War emails that people circulate about how "it's a Christmas tree, not a Holiday tree, not a Hannukah bush, not a Quanza" something-or-other... I usually respond by sending to the same list an explanation about the pagan origins of what is now called a Christmas tree. If you're going to be sanctimonious, seems you should at least have the facts.

Most rational people don't take this so-called "war on Christmas" seriously, but those who do fear the loss of their right to use government facilities and funds to celebrate their religion publically. But there are always loopholes. One can always resort to "Mary and the Magic Baby."

Christmas Covers - December 15

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Rudolph helps Santa trim the tree on Rube Grossman's cover to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #7 (1956).

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 10 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Donald Duck & Co. #49/1964)
(2006: 2000 A.D. #763)
(2005: Incredible Hulk #378)
(2004: Batman #45)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Rot, Papal, Fissures

(To see the comic big-like, click it)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Perfect Gifts Suggestions.

This cartoon is an unusual amalgamation of ideas from different places. A reader suggested I do something about Edward Rock/Paper/Scissors, and a friend of mine, Derek, whose ideas I have used before, suggested an idea about Edward Scissorneck. I thought each of these ideas had some merit, but neither appealed to me on its own. When combined, however, I think they make an interesting triptych.

Of course, the movie came out back in the 1900s and appealed to a cult demographic, so I suspect a lot of my older and very young readers will not get this gag at all. I don't mind publishing cartoons that some readers won't get, though, which is just another of the growing number of reasons that I'm not rich.

Longtime readers often ask me if I've thought of doing a Bizarro movie or animated TV show. I have, but with no recurring characters, story lines, or even subject matter, what would that show be like?

If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them before all the newspapers in the country go out of business and I'm forced to seek employment at a Hollywood escort service.

Christmas Monkey Covers - December 14

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. In addition, Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB, because there's nothing better than a comic with monkeys on the cover!

Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday Monkey comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Today's selection is Tom-Tom, The Jungle Boy #3, on a cover that might seem very familiar...

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 11 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Sugar & Spike #68)
(2006: Sugar & Spike #38)
(2005: Sugar & Spike #26)
(2004: Sugar & Spike #32)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

Christmas Covers - December 13

For each day of December until Christmas I'm featuring a Comic Cover Advent Calendar. Just move your mouse over the image to reveal today's special Holiday comic cover. Click on the image to get a larger version. (If you're on a feed reader you may need to click through to the blog to get it to work.)

Everyone's favorite mischievous tykes spy something they maybe ought not to on Sheldon Mayer's cover to Sugar & Spike #44 (1963).

Come back tomorrow, and every day this month, for a new Christmas cover.


Just 12 more 'get-ups' until Santa!


(2007: Love Hina vol. 6)
(2006: Green Lantern: Mosaic #9)
(2005: Jonah Hex #34)
(2004: Starman #27)

(Polite Dissent's 2008 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar)
(Brendan McKillip's Comic Advent Calendar 2008)
(Brian Cronin's 2008 Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar)
 

The Real McCoy

Bizarro is brought to you today by Useful Information.

I wrote this joke during the last throes of the presidential campaign. One of the pointiest sticks in my craw for the past ten years is how many Americans will choose a candidate because he or she seems "folksy" (read: dumb) like them, over someone who is intelligent and well educated. Adjectives like "Ivy League" and "brainy" have been the worst things a person could be called if they hoped to win an election. No, you would never want a person smarter than you to lead the most powerful country in the world. That might make you feel inferior.

In spite of the amazing PR job that was done to convince voters of the opposite, W was the epitome of Ivy League elitism (though no one would ever accuse him of being brainy.) His privileged stroll from birth to the White House, and his now-proven utter indifference to the conditions of life for those outside his anointed circle, are precisely what most Americans do not want in a politician. Yet all they need to be convinced otherwise is a "gimme" cap and a phony accent. (Ever wondered why no one else in Bush's family has a Texas accent? I lived in Texas for 22 years and can attest to the fact that W's is pretty unauthentic. Maybe it's because he was mostly raised by a wealthy political family from New England.)

Thank God (or "no one," for my atheist readers) that Obama was able to get past this idiotic trend of electing counterfeit bumpkins to the Oval Office. While oozing intelligence, compassion, authenticity and elegance, he still managed to get elected. I pray (figuratively) that enough Americans are tired of hillbilly heads of state that those days are over, at least for a while.

But just when I feel comfortable in that assumption, a silhouette with a banjo and a corncob pipe appears on the horizon of Alaska.