Smells

Bizarro is brought to you today by A Good Read.

As many of my readers know, I'm not a fan of many of America's anti-smoking laws and I can honestly say that I'd hold the same opinion even if I didn't smoke. Quite frankly, blanket bans on public smoking verge on fascism. It proposes no health risk whatsoever to smell someone's cigarette, cigar or pipe as it wafts by in an unenclosed space. None. You could smell smoke in a public park every day for a thousand years and not get cancer. Tobacco smoke is not cyanide gas.

Allowing merchants to ban smoking in their establishment is fine. But to ban it in all buildings, regardless of the preferences of the owner, manager, or patrons is ridiculous. Why can't a bar owner in NYC decide for himself if he wants to allow smoking? No one is required to be in a bar. Proponents of these laws say that it exposes the employees to a health risk. First, the health risk of breathing second-hand smoke on the job is negligible, far less than eating meat and dairy. Second, no one is required to work there.

In California (and some other places) you can't smoke within 25 feet of a building. For those of you outside of California, this isn't a joke, they're actually protecting the health of bricks and masonry. This law is clearly nothing more than a vendetta against a habit that some people find unappealing.

There are plenty of habits I find unappealing, if I can get enough people behind me, does it make sense in a free society to ban them? I love music but hearing music that I did not choose to listen to at that moment bugs the crap out of me, for instance: In cars, stores, restaurants, taxis, nightclubs, you name it. Nine times out of ten it is something I do not have on my iPod and I can honestly say that it annoys me as much as smelling smoke annoys other people. I'm sure there are other people who feel the same way, shall we outlaw all music that is audible to more than the person who chose to play it?

I don't like ugly clothing or hairstyles, either. Let's ban them in all public buildings and within 25 feet of doorways. And in public parks and on beaches, too. Soda pop and junk food also disgust me and are as clear a long-term health risk as is smoking. Out you go. And don't get me started about some people's accents. A nasally southern twang makes me want to jump in front of a train.

I'm guessing that most people don't share my view and some may claim democracy and say the majority wins. But that's not really what a free society is about. It means we're all free to do what we choose if it isn't injuring others. An odor we find unpleasant isn't really injury, it's momentary inconvenience, as it is with music, ugly hairdos and twangy nose-talkers.

Mind you, I don't think smoking bans will ever be repealed, I'm just whining.

I Think I'm Going to be Sick...

Yep, Leslie and Maggie are here to stay. According to the last poll, you readers found Poo's parasites to be:

our new friends (41%)

Leslie & Maggie (37%)

disgusting (31%)

cute! (11%)

Thanks for voting and while you're here check out the new poll.

Oh, and if you're having trouble deciphering the itty-bitty, high-pitched word balloons of Leslie and Maggie, be sure to click on the comic to enlarge it for easier reading.

Snakes & Gay Sailors

Bizarro is brought to you
today by The Dog Throw.

Instead of discussing my "snake eyes" cartoon today, let's talk about a comic book story that a friend of mine sent me recently. This is a small story within a larger volume of (presumably tough-guy) war comics called "The Losers," circa early seventies. You'll want to click on each image to see the details and read the copy.


As you can see by the cover, even though we were up to our eyeballs in the Vietman War, this comic is about WWII.













On the title page of our story, Toro is a lovely young man with remarkably feminine characteristics. He has a Florence Henderson haircut, ties his fatigues to expose his abs, wears a belt from the Diana Ross Collection and what's that over his shoulder reaching for his pearl necklace? Oh, it's a fairy.







On page two, we find that not only is his walk "peculiar" but he talks like a 17th century dandy. He's also always "neat and clean" and I think we all know what that means. We can tell by the looks on the other sailors' faces that this makes them angry.









In case the reader has missed the subtle clues, on this next page they actually identify him as a "fairy." One sailor, whose arm movement is more than a little melodramatic, is curious to find out more about him and who can blame him? He's been at sea for a long time. But before he can so much as buy him a glass of Chardonnay, the unarmed group is confronted by hostiles bearing weapons and even one of the tough guys turns into a sniveling little girl.

The "manly" sailors run away, but Toro runs toward the enemy. This doesn't surprise us because we already know he is crazy. What we didn't know was that he has the ability to change a flower into a funny knife.










On the final page, one Japanese soldier jumps off a cliff rather than fight the fairy. If you're not familiar with WWII history, the Japanese were well known for this kind of cowardice, which is why they surrendered so easily and never flew manned planes into U.S. Navy ships. Further demonstrating his insanity (an appreciation of flowers and jewelry) Toro jumps to his death, too.

In the final frame we find out that the name "Toro" comes from a handmade knife which he carries "strapped to his thigh, under his pants" (which made me a little hot.) It is further explained to us that although he loved beautiful things, he loved freedom even more, in spite of the fact that he was not free to be a fairy in the Navy. All of this killing, shirt-tying and beautiful hair had driven him crazy. Or perhaps he just loved his country so much that he wished to relieve them of the unpleasant task of dealing with a homosexual among their ranks. Whatever the reason, he clearly did "not wish to remain".

I'm not going to say that the artist was gay but I do find the flower over Toro's anus somewhat provocative. Regardless, this was a daring story line for a '70s war comic. I'd love to know if the editors were making a case for gays in the military or if they were truly clueless. Remember, in those days gay characters were not on TV anywhere, were only rarely depicted in films (and usually with derision and/or pathos) and outside of progressive neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York, were not discussed in polite society. As a kid growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I didn't even know what homosexuality was until I was midway through high school and some rednecks called me a fag, presumably because I was not dressed like a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. A story like this would have confused me completely.

What have we learned from this?
Gays can be just as ruthless as straights.
Gays have weapons hidden in their pants.
Be wary of people with flowers sticking out of their butts.

Monkey Covers

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

Grodd bites off the logo to the cover of Superman/Batman #63 (2009) by Rafael Albuquerque.

(Standard disclaimer about comic-chewing apes not really being monkeys applies.)


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

Racist Humor?

(For a larger view, click a peep)
Bizarro is brought to you today by Other Peeps.

Just as I predicted, I got an angry letter from someone who thought this cartoon was racist. It is my humble opinion that many Americans are confused about the very definition of the word, believing that any mention of a minority group in anything other than complimentary terms constitutes racism. They are wrong.

If this cartoon had implied that all African Americans dressed or talked this way, or were somehow inferior, untrustworthy, un-anything you'd have racism. All this cartoon does is depict an alternative meaning of a common phrase used by a common person in common dress. Yes, this character is a stereotype but he is one that roams my Brooklyn neighborhood in droves and the cartoon does not disparage him. It only depicts him. You may feel that stereotypes of any kind are wrong, but then you'd have to start complaining about every businessman or housewife or family dog in every cartoon you ever read. That would get tiresome, although I would doubtless get a lot of entertainment from the letters.

Cartoonists deal in stereotypes routinely, it is how we communicate. It is also what enables the reader to recognize the character and gives context to their predicament or dialogue. It is my opinion that calling everything racism detracts from actual racism.

It should be noted that the person who wrote to me wasn't even black. Oy vey.

It's Summertime!

Robot can't wait to show off his chest hair but Unicorn's feeling a little apprehensive. Are YOU body conscious like Unicorn? Well, get a MYTHFITS tee to wear to the beach. Hide that webcomic reading body under distractingly charming fabric! A couple more designs have been added to the t-shirt shop. Nothing says Summer more than fun new T-shirts! Click on the tee icons below...

King Kong Tennis

Bizarro is brought to you today by Larry King.

I like this Larry King Kong joke. The bottom title caption thingy is funny by itself and the humor is further advance by the reference to Skull Island, which is where Kong was captured. Not to be missed is the coffee cup which reads, "Marry Me," since Larry marries a lot of people. So there you have it – three jokes in one. Because I care about you.

Random thoughts of the week:
The USA won a World Cup game in the last minute of the match the other day and unlike my previous experiences with soccer, I found it exciting. In spite of my disparaging comments about soccer (football everywhere except the U.S.) a few days ago, I'm starting to get into the tournament. I still say the melodramatic diving is absurd (every time someone falls in apparent agony because he was tapped on the back I want to introduce him to the hockey player who, during the recent Stanley Cup Playoffs, had seven teeth knocked out by a puck, finished the game, had surgery the next day and played the next night), the officiating is laughable, and it's a bit slow for my taste, but I'm having fun with it. I like to listen to sports while I draw cartoons and look up when the commentator gets excited.

You may have heard that a truly historic tennis match happened at Wimbledon this week. Without going into how tennis is scored, the average match takes around 3 hours and around 50 games are played, often less. This one, between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, lasted 11 hours and five minutes, took three days to complete because it was called for darkness twice, incorporated 183 games and 980 points. That's more games in a single match than some players have to play to get all the way through a tournament and several different opponents to win the trophy for the entire thing. To put it into perspective, it would be like a baseball game that lasted fifty or sixty innings, like a football game that lasted 12 hours, like a soccer match that lasted 9 hours, like an election that lasted 6 weeks (oh, we had one of those), like a dumped lover eating three gallons of Haagen Dazs at one sitting.

Here is what the average score of a tennis set looks like:
Player A: 6 4 4 6 6
Player B: 3 6 6 3 4
Each number represents the number of games it took to win each of five sets. Player A wins the best of five.

Here's what this match looked like:
Isner: 6 3 6 7 70
Mahut: 4 6 7 6 68

How these guys remained standing and playing well is beyond anyone's guess. After the match, Mahut went home and cried a lot, Isner went on to lose his next match (a day later) quickly and mercifully, going home and downing three gallons of Haagen dazs.

Last random thought: We had a dandy time watching our buddy, Rhett Miller, play at the Bowery Hotel bar last night. Here's a pic of me, Rhett, CHNW, and Rich, Rhett's dentist, whom we've become friends with because he shows up at all of Rhett's gigs in NYC. And no, it was not Loud Shirt Night at Bowery Hotel last night, it was just a coincidence.












P.S. Rhett isn't naturally shiny, he had just finished playing and was sweaty. (Mmmmm...rock star sweat...)