More Snake!

Snakemommy wrote back and provided me with this scintillating video of Louise the Burmese Python jumping through a hoop, just like in the cartoon. If you missed the beginning of this story, check out my previous post! Thanks, Snakemommy!



She also reminded me that this was Louise's second appearance on my blog. Here is the first.

Snake

I'll be posting some new cartoons tomorrow but for today I offer you this photo which just came in from a reader who calls herself Snakesmommy. This is her pet python, Louise, and she is shown here enjoying a Bizarro cartoon about a trained snake act in the circus. The cartoon appears in "The Best of Bizarro" and "Life is Strange and So Are You, a Bizarro Sunday Treasury" is featured in the background. I have no background info on the blue ring.

If you'd like to send me photos of your pets with Bizarro cartoons, please do so. Who's going to stop you and why should they try? It's really none of their business.

To see this cartoon up bigger, click on the left breast pocket of the animal trainer.













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Amazon Top 50

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


1 (-). Diary of a Wimpy Kid 5: The Ugly Truth
2 (+2). Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
3 (-1). Odd Is on Our Side (Kindle edition)
4 (N). Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne *
5 (+1). Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Boxset
6 (+3). Dork Diaries (Kindle edition)
7 (-). Dork Diaries 2 (Kindle edition)
8 (+3). Walking Dead Volume 13
9 (-4). Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
10 (-7). Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
11 (-3). The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1
12 (+1). Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
13 (+17). Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
14 (+19). Naruto, Vol. 50
15 (-). Big Nate: From the Top
16 (-6). Diary of a Wimpy Kid Box of Books
17 (+24). Batman: Year One
18 (+9). Watchmen
19 (-5). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
20 (+4). Dork Diaries 2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl
21 (+26). Batman: The Killing Joke
22 (+1). Superman: Earth One
23 (-4). Walking Dead Volume 12
24 (N). Irredeemable Vol. 5
25 (N). Scenes from an Impending Marriage
26 (-9). V for Vendetta
27 (+13). The Walking Dead, Book 6
28 (-6). Black Butler, Vol. 4
29 (-17). Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
30 (+4). The Walking Dead, Vol. 9: Here We Remain
31 (+4). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 8: Last Gleaming *
32 (-1). Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight
33 (-8). The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear The Hunters
34 (-13). Fables Vol. 14: Witches
35 (+3). The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, Vol. 1)
36 (-10). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life
37 (+7). Highschool of the Dead, Vol. 1
38 (+8). The Walking Dead, Book 5
39 (+9). Blackest Night
40 (R). Batman: Arkham Asylum (15th Anniversary Edition)
41 (R). Batman: Hush
42 (-6). Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour
43 (-23). The Walking Dead, Vol. 10: What We Become
44 (+6). Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life
45 (R). The Arrival
46 (R). Brightest Day, Vol. 1
47 (R). The Walking Dead, Book 1
48 (-3). Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe
49 (-). Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
50 (-21). Avengers, Vol. 1 *


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

N = New listing appearing on list for first time
R = Item returning to the list after having been off for 1 or more weeks


Commentary:

* The Wimpy Kid stays on the top once again, and falls just a smidge more to #68 on the overall chart.

* A huge debut for Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne at #4, and it seemingly has coattails as a number of other Batman books show significant gains.

* The two other debuts are the latest volume of Irredeemable and Adrian Tomine's Scenes from an Impending Marriage.

* Scott Pilgrim's sales momentum has moved almost entirely to his Precious Little Boxset.

* Dead Watch: Nine volumes on the chart this week.

* A relatively good week for manga, as all three debut volumes from last week remain on the chart, with Naruto in particular showing an impressive gain.

* Only Avengers at the #50 slot keeps Marvel from being skunked on the chart this week. (It's at #2,654 on the overall chart.)

Crazy Couch

Bizarro is brought to you today by Dog Walker.

Have you ever been up sh*t creek without a paddle? (I cleverly added the * to that word so that it would be family friendly. Everyone knows that children are no good at Wheel of Fortune.)

Of course you have, we all have. And the message of this cartoon is to pay more attention to your paddle than to your wardrobe. Of course, if you're up sh*t creek without a paddle, this advice is useless. And if you're out canoeing in one of those smiley face shirts, you deserve whatever you get because everybody hates those things. Unless you're wearing it ironically, in which case you probably deserve to be visited by hillbillies, ala Deliverance. (Wow, that was bitter. I didn't know until I typed this how much pent up aggression I have toward ironic shirts.)

This cartoon about light reading is a bit of nonsense with no particular message. Unless it would be that if you find yourself bored enough to read the ends of light bulbs over and over, it's probably time to quit your job, leave your wife, and go on a violent odyssey of some sort, ala Going Native, by Stephen Wright. (One of my favorite books, but not written by the Steven Wright who is a stand-up comedian and not funny.)

As long as we're discussing my damaged psyche, let's take a quick visit to Sigmund's Couch. I quite like this old cartoon from 1997, written and drawn two years after my divorce and the most therapy-intensive period of my life. Notice you can read "ID" on the sign above the door to rhyme with "bid," which is a Freudian term! Hahahahahahah! Also notice that back then I was often drawing the cartoon outside the borders. I did it because I liked it, I stopped doing it for reasons unknown. Probably laziness.

Let's hear it from all those readers who have enjoyed psychotherapy at some point in their lives. I only go when I'm really troubled, but I have to admit I love it. Something so soothing about talking about myself for 45 minutes without fear of interruption.

If you'd like to see these cartoons on various fine tidbits of merchandise, just click the 'toon. It's fun and painless!

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Hate Humor?

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Elephant Boy.

It's been hate mail week here at Bizarro International Headquarters. I got a few letters on each of the first two comics posted here.

Several people thought that the Elephant Snowman cartoon was insensitive to people suffering from deformities and found it incomprehensible that I made fun of them in this way. I politely explained that I was not making fun of deformities, but simply finding a funny way to lampoon a famous line from a movie, David Lynch's The Elephant Man. It was suggested in strong terms that I apologize to all of the people who suffer from so-called "Elephantitis" (Proteus syndrome) and after a little research I found that there are about 100 such people living in the world today. If any of them are readers of Bizarro, I hope they understood the cartoon the way it was intended. I'm kind of guessing there aren't any but you can never be too careful.

A side note: I did not receive complaints on either of these two cartoons on the same subject. One. The other.

I thought the hate mail fest was over, but then I got a couple of letters about this spoof of the La-Z-Boy recliner. Apparently people who are related to people suffering from mental disorders, like schizophrenia, object to the term "crazy." That makes sense, I suppose, but I would contend that this is not a joke that perpetuates the poor treatment of those with mental illnesses, it's just a silly pun on "lazy". As with the PC language movement in general, I don't believe changing what people call people does much to change the way they react to them. I think it's a chicken-or-the-egg situation: the term "negro" was polite until bigots used it with enough frequency that it became a slur. "Black" wasn't derogatory when African-Americans chose it for themselves in the 1960s, it became derogatory because it has been standard for decades and bigotry is still common. Eventually, "African-American" will be thought of as derogatory as well. Etc., etc., and on and on. A large percentage of us are jerks, no matter what language we are taught to use.

For the record, I'm not a jerk. I don't knowingly discriminate against people for things that are beyond their control like appearance, ethnicity, mental or physical disabilities, sexual orientation, height, etc. I often discriminate against people for their beliefs and behavior, however. I'm a discriminating discriminator.

Looking for a smooth segue? How could you ask for a smoother one than from that last discussion to this cartoon about gay horses? I'm so glad that our government has finally joined the 21st century and repealed the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. If someone is willing to wield a gun to defend me I don't give a damn what turns them on. Of course, it won't end discrimination, but it's a baby step in the right direction.

In summary:
I apologize to victims of Proteus syndrome if my joke bothered you.
I apologize to the mentally impaired and their loved ones if my joke bothered them.
I'm a bigot toward bigots and I don't apologize.
And while I'm at it, it occurs to me that this post wasn't very funny so I apologize for that, too.

So very, very sorry for so, so much.

If you'd like to peruse many fine products with the above cartoons emblazoned thereupon, click the cartoon.

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San Fran Comedy

A good friend of mine and a damn funny/smart comedian, Brian Malow, is doing a show at the San Francisco Punch Line next week, you should go see it if you're in the area. He kills, as they say in the business.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Punch Line Comedy Club, San Francisco
Tickets can be got here for less than the cost of a cheap Halloween wig.

Heavy Metal Magazine Vol.XXXV No.1

Heavy Metal Magazine Vol.XXXV No.1
2011 | 124 pages | PDF | English | 131 MB
Download MIRROR #1

Download MIRROR #2