Saggy Ink

Bizarro is brought to you today by an Awesome Rock Show.

Simple word play again today, seems to be the week for it. Nothing much to say about this one other than that Cliff is a friend of mine, with whom I am working on a book project. His fiance did not break up with him, however. He's happily married.

In other news, Parade Magazine continues to publish my cartoons from time to time and below is one they've featured as a caption contest. If you consider yourself a captioneer you can still enter their contest and win whatever it is they are awarding.

A lot of people really enjoy caption contests and I'd have one on this blog except that I've found two things to be true of them:
1. it is a tedious task to sift through all of the entries, many of which are uncannily identical
2. if 800 people enter, you make one person happy and piss off 799

Seems a losing proposition to me so I'll not be offering any caption contests here, but if you want to submit your idea for this cartoon in the comments section, I'll read it. I won't choose a winner and all you stand to win is my silent respect. Obscene captions will be deleted as I continue to attempt to keep this blog relatively family friendly so I can continue to list the URL in my client newspapers.

Thanks for understanding, you're a sweetheart.

After the Parade contest is over, I'll tell you my original caption for this cartoon. Which I meant to use in Bizarro and maybe did. I can't remember just now and can't find my archives. If I didn't use it, I will later this year. The joke was inspired by CHNW's grandmother, who has numerous tattoos, most of which she got after the age of 60.

Victoria's Puck

Bizarro is made possible today by Eternal Honeymoon Lingerie.

Yes, this joke is a bit adolescent, but at least I didn't use a basketball. I do have some restraint. Nor did I use a baseball, which, come to think of it, might have been funnier. A golf ball would have been too small to read legibly, as would a hockey puck, which is not "cup shaped" even when cut in half. If her husband were hooked on watching sumo wrestling, I'd have no idea how to illustrate a sports bra for that.

Still, lots of people like visual puns, that's how Carrot Top got rich, and I like to cater to my entire readership, not just the sophisticated humor connoisseurs who frequent this blog.

Monkey Covers

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

Bob should know better than to play cards with a gorilla on the cover of The Adventures of Bob Hope #33 (1955).

(Standard disclaimer about poker-playing gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Detective M. Richard Tracy

Bizarro is brang to you today by Gooder Grammar.

This kind of simple word play where you combine the names of two things and create a third thing is very common, I know. Maybe there's even a name for this process, if anyone knows of one, please leave it in the comments section. Or make one up.

What made this one appealing to me was the deadpan humor of a whale with a two-way wrist TV that he can't possibly see from his vantage point. Plus the tiny hat. I also like to render underwater scenes, so all that added together made for a green light.

As I look at this thing this morning, I can't find the 5 symbols that the number by the signature says there are supposed to be. I only found four. So here's another version with one added. If someone finds all five in the original, let me know.

Non-Gay Rainbow Rankings

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hideous Monsters.

The most funnest part of this comic was the drawing. Even though drawings like this are tedious and time consuming, both to research and to draw, I always really enjoy the final product. (For you technique buffs, I should mention that the entire drawing is done with a small brush, even the lettering, and I use no straightedge of any kind.)

I like this gag and its soft parody of the stupendously transparent propaganda tool of the Bushies. As any scientist will tell you, a human's ability to reason is seriously compromised by fear. Ergo, if you keep the people frightened, it takes them longer to figure out you're screwing them. It's an age-old political trick but still works like a charm. Most recently, it worked on Americans for 8 years. Some are still trying it.

I've included the strip version of this one, too, since it required a lot of extra art and fenagling. My favorite part of the strip version is the anatomical heart on the sign in the back. What is that company selling? I have no idea what the Japanese type on all these signs says, I just borrowed stuff from signs I found on the Internets. For all I know, they could say (insert your own joke here.)
(As always, click the image to colossalize it.)

Finally, I got this email from a reader:

How dare you !?!?!

Rodan is easily a higher priority than Mothra. He's older ( released after Godzilla and before Mothra to terrorize us in our movie theaters ), leatherier and gnarleyier.

My sincere apologies to this or any other reader who was offended by my rankings. I was rating them by how often I'd heard their name. I hope that I have not offended Rodan or his followers.

DISCLAIMER: The writer of the above email was not serious, he was actually taking a self-deprecating jab at his own obsession with Japanese movie monsters. Taken out of context, though, it's much funnier. Saying the Security Alert System is a tool of propaganda does not mean I don't there is any danger of another terrorist attack, it is only to say that there isn't anything the average person or society can gain from this rainbow bogeyman thermometer. My apology to followers of Rodan was tongue-in-cheek, if you really were offended by this you need professional help, possibly medication, definitely a girlfriend.

Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Watchmen
2 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
3 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid
4 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
5 (-). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
6 (+1). V for Vendetta
7 (-1). Watchmen (Absolute Edition)
8 (+1). Batman: The Killing Joke
9 (+3). Blueberry Girl
10 (+10). Fruits Basket, Vol. 22
11 (N). Batman: Year One
12 (N). Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 3 *
13 (-3). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1
14 (-3). The Joker
15 (-). Batman: R.I.P.
16 (+1). Star Trek: Countdown TPB *
17 (-9). Watchmen (hardcover)
18 (+9). Time of Your Life (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 4) *
19 (-6). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
20 (+3). Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 3)
21 (+3). The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972 *
22 (-6). The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
23 (+3). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
24 (-10). From Hell
25 (+19). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
26 (N). No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 2)
27 (-8). All Star Superman, Vol. 2
28 (+8). Batman: The Long Halloween
29 (-11). Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days
30 (N). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
31 (-2). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
32 (-1). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
33 (N). Spike: After The Fall HC
34 (-12). The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
35 (N). The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack *
36 (+10). Eerie Archives Volume 1
37 (N). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 1)
38 (-8). Jack of Fables Vol. 5: Turning Pages
39 (-7). The Arrival
40 (+5). The Starman Omnibus, Vol. 2
41 (N). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
42 (N). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
43 (N). The Complete Persepolis
44 (-16). The Vast Spread of the Seas (The Twelve Kingdoms)
45 (-11). Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind
46 (N). Bone: One Volume Edition
47 (N). Unmanned (Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1)
48 (N). The Hidden Temple (Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 5)
49 (+1). The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House
50 (-29). Watching the Watchmen: The Definitive Companion to the Ultimate Graphic Novel

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


Commentary:

* Watchmen finally starts to show slight signs of weakness; while it remains #1 on the comics charts, it slips a bit to #6 on the overall book chart. The hardcover falls nine places, and quite surprisingly Dave Gibbons' Watching the Watchmen falls 29 slots to anchor the bottom of the list at #50. We also see drops in other Alan Moore items like LXG & From Hell, although V for Vendetta is doing fine.

* A surprisingly high resurgence for Batman: Year One, which comes in at #11 after being absent form the chart previously. I wonder if this is where the Watchmen Halo is moving to?

* A strong showing this week for the Buffyverse: the third Angel After the Fall hardcover debuts way up at #12 as a pre-order; the Spike: After the Fall hardcover debuts at #33, and all the Buffy volumes show growth. On the other hand, the two volumes of Serenity both have steep drop-offs.

* In manga-watch: Fruits Basket moves up to the #10 slot as it moves from pre-order to shipping; the only other manga on the chart is The Vast Spread of the Seas, with Naruto being conspiculously absent.

Fighting For Fun

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by A Useless Degree in Marketing.

I am a fan of air hockey, regular hockey, and fighting, so this cartoon appeals to me in many ways. I like the general concept that since hockey leads to fights, if you're playing air hockey your fight would logically consist of trying to blow each other down. (The last word in that sentence is the most important.)

People who are not fans of hockey often question why there is so much fighting. It is not gratuitous, as is often surmised, it actually serves an important purpose. A good friend of mine some years ago came up with a theory about this that I've adhered to ever since: Hockey is arguably the most difficult sport in the world to play as it requires very high levels of disparate skills.

1. You must change direction quickly and constantly while standing on ice
2. You have knife blades strapped to your shoes
3. You must control a rock-hard disk moving at lightening speed on a slippery surface with a bent stick
4. You are being pushed and slammed into by other knife-shoe-wearers covered in armor traveling at very high speeds

It's sort of like combining surgery with dodge 'em cars. Just when you're about to suture that aorta closed, somebody slams into you from behind and ruins the whole thing. Again.

Doing all of this at once is very difficult and, by definition, very frustrating. Every now and then you have to blow off some steam. So the refs let the surgeons swing away at each other for a few seconds before they break them up. Then they send them each to a little room (penalty box) to think about what they've done or take a short nap.

Leaving the topic of hockey fights behind, I just noticed a grievous error in the art of this cartoon. The perspective on the hockey table is way off. The brown outside border of the table is more or less in line with itself, but the three black lines in the middle of the table are hideously askew. That's very unlike me to not notice and fix such a visual faux pas, but perhaps I was in a hurry or drunk. Or maybe one of my hockey pals was slamming me against the boards while I tried to work. Anything is possible at Bizarro International Headquarters.