Bizarro is brought to you today by Big Orange Jumpsuits. "They're free, they're mandatory, you'll wear it and like it!"I got an email last week from someone who really loved this cartoon. She said she laughed and laughed. Common wisdom in the newspaper world is that for every letter you get, there are x number of other people who feel the same way. I'm going to pretend that number is 6 billion. That means that virtually every person on the planet thought this cartoon was funny as hell. That's a good feeling, my friends.
Does anyone out there know at what point Americans began describing all UFO drivers as looking like this guy at left? I'm guessing there was some pop culture event that depicted them this way and it caught on. The first time I ever saw this face was on this book cover, so perhaps that was it. Or, maybe the ones that began visiting in the mid-to-late 20th century actually looked like this and the notion came from truth.
What if extraterrestrials of sufficient intelligence to travel light years across the universe really did visit out planet and turned out to be one inch tall and no stronger than a cockroach? (Do we have any good reason for assuming they would be about our size?) Would we still respect them? Would our government show them around the White House and serve tiny plates to them at a state dinner?
Or would we dominate and breed them, cook and eat them, grind them up to make aphrodisiacs, keep them as pets? If, on the other hand, each creature turned out to be the size of the moon, perhaps we'd be dinner. It would be interesting to see how fundamentalists would explain this.
Luckily, as we know from the ones hiding among us, they are about our size and mean us no harm.
22 comments:
That dog in the cheerleader uniform looks so embarrassed. As she should.
Your aliens are so much cuter than the standard greys.
Im sorry i gotta laugh. About 80percet of people who write on here enjoy taking the center stage then out of nowhere someone who i never seen drops a line on dans blog.
It saddens me to say but these are dans fans who read the comic in daily paper,notice the blogspot link on his cartoons and drop by to see what the blog is all about then run away after seeing some of the shit that is posted.
i laugh cause im obsessed with chicken and bacon and im still viewed as dan chrony of course.
believe it or not everyone knows i laugh at all anonymous comments and fido comments even when i argue back with anonymous. This is what makes america great free speech.
In all the time ive written to dan i dont touch the topic of veganism to me its like not touching the topic of someones religious views or homesexuality. it is what it is thats what makes everyone different
I think its dans tolerance that intrigues me more than anything when it comes to this blog. Im the type whod spend 24 hours on blog erasing everything deragotaory or not in my favor .
Everyones opinion does mean something in the end.
I dont think anyone should ever be openly criticised for having the guts to blog there own opinions however I dont think anyone should be able to blurb without hearing answers from others.
Whether it be a hate group or anything. id rather hear what they have to say then doing it n secret at least you know what you are up against.
Ill bet you this though if anonymous were to start his or her own blog everyone here knows it would be addicting and be as popular as dans
In the end what im trying to say is i look forward to everything everyone has to say on this blog and i believe everyone does to thats why they come back for it again and again.
You have a good point Derek, but I have to say this, intelligent blogs are addictive because you never know where it may lead you. Goofball and idiot blogs while entertaining in a car accident on the freeway sort of way, are really not as addicting. People look at them to see what the fuss is , then the 15 minutes is over.
As to the look of the aliens, that particular look is often referred to as a "Roswell Grey", because it is how the Roswell crash "victims" were described in numerous accounts. However, I have also seen reference (here I believe) to that particular look becoming the norm after "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" was released back in 1977.
It is a very homocentric (not 100% sure that's the word I'm looking for but it's the closest I can get) to assume that any other intelligent species in the universe should even be close to a human appearance. When you look at the amazing variations of life on this planet alone, trying to imagine the possibilities that the universe holds simply hurts the head after a while. Although the cockroach idea reminds me of an episode of "The X-Files" where Mulder is talking to a cockroach that he believes to be an alien.
BTW Dan, was doing some back-logging at "Comics Coast to Coast" and found your interview. You manged quite well considering the Skype lag going on! lol
I love the way the various sites I follow will fall in sync with each other, subject wise.
http://www.365tomorrows.com/10/22/daydreamer/
Heh.
I just hope if aliens are going to make their presence known, it happens in my life time.
Troll: That may have been my post, but more or less it was "Close Encounters". The alien had been depicted that way before but it was Close Encounters that turned "Mr. Joe Big Eyes" into a standard, BTW he really is a plumber.
As a fundamentalist I have no problem in saying I might be wrong. A fundamentalist is not a wacko, we just believe in the fundamentals of the Bible. Every religion has its wackos and crazies out there but you take your religion on faith. Even those who believe in nothing (if that is possible) believes it on faith.
The simple example of the big bang is a huge leap of faith. I can at least say that maybe God said "let there be the big bang" if the big bang had occurred, but because I have faith in God does not mean I am less a person because you have your faith in science (if you believe in the big bang). I have worked with great scientists and they laugh at theories just as much as I do.
So if the aliens arrive I will be awe just as much as the rest of the planet. However if the second coming of Christ were to happen before then I wont be surprised.
Francine is right on the money about these loser bloggers who need to find their own spot to blog its pathetic
as most of you may know my grandpa or as they say in french pepere possesses a virgin ass
the other day i picked up my frail grandpa from off the toilet and sat him on the sink..
i had a credit card bill on the sink that i placed my peperes ass on
anyways after i took him off the sink the bill stuck to his ass...
after removing the bill i discovered a round bum spot that im calling my peperes original
it will go for $550-$850 a pop
fido: you mean "a poop" not "a pop"
judging by your use of the word Fundamentalists, I assume you mean Cristian or Biblical fundamentalists?
Seventh-Day Adventists are considered so I believe, since we believe in the inerrant word of the Bible, including the first chapter.
Our church's founder Ellen White talked about aliens that had not fallen to sin like Adam did. I have been at seminars where the speakers considers that the "sons of God" (b'nei elohim) are possibly aliens from other worlds.
Great post, isee3dtoo.
I have loved Bizarro for years, Dan. I've always liked how for so many of your comics, the drawing is absolutely integral to the humor & makes the joke. Most other comics can easily be paraphrased in words. Keep up the good work!
And now (hooray!) I actually have something of possible interest to mention in this blog, a second-hand hypothesis (i.e. comment of a former professor, many years ago) that the standard alien appearance (big head, small body, generally unformed) may be an unconscious imaginative appropriation of the image of the human fetus, specifically of the image of a fetus within the womb famously covering a 1965 issue of Life magazine.
I don't know enough personally to judge the merit of this hypothesis, but for whatever reason it has long rattled around the back of my brain.
lmao...hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
a poop not a pop hahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
isee3d: I'm sorry, I don't say this often (really, check my posts), but claiming that "The simple example of the big bang is a huge leap of faith..." is wrong, incorrect. The Big Bang Theory is the result of rigorous and incremental application of human reason and disbelief. Faith is the suspension of reason and the invocation of belief; this makes them mutually exclusive.
Choosing to believe that it's true is something else entirely- anyone, including a scientist, can decide not to believe in the Big Bang, in favor of other theories. In fact that's what keeps science going, and makes sure that it gets its facts checked- people who don't believe in a theory proposing alternative explanations, and those who believe in the first being forced to defend their theory. But this is not faith, because faith is by definition confidence in an idea without question.
However, I suppose "faith in science" is a fairly apt description- at a certain point, you are a) trusting that human reason is worth anything at all and b) trusting other people who claim to understand these things. But no one who claims to have a scientific world-view should accept those statements without question.
robert: Faith is the belief in things unseen. Do you know anyone, and I will let you think about that as long as you want, that saw the big bang in person? Now you can say that astronomers have heard what they believe (i.e taken on faith) the echos of the big bang. You can say that from experiments scientist have shown that some of their theories are plausible. But you will never find someone who says they saw it or experienced it. It is a huge leap of faith to believe that it occurred the way it is surmised to have occurred. I teach the scientific method, I have the letters behind my name all the way to PostDoc and I will agree it may have happened. But I take it on faith because my puny mind says it may have happened another way.
I don't want to get in a big argument on here because you can't change my mind and I can't change yours. The last time I got into a discussion on the big bang with someone they said the law of physics did not exist before the bang and they were created during the bang. I don't know what existed before the bang, don't have a clue but my puny mind will bet the laws of physics were there (though I take that on faith) but if the laws of physics didn't exist that makes for an exciting mix. Take for example non-Euclidean geometry, you can have parallel line intersect and prove some interesting things. So as the theory goes you destroy the laws of physics so you can have an energy eruption and the laws are formed. Hmm... doesn't require faith?
Time to take a worm home to another planet...
isee3dtoo: My reply simple: there is a distinct difference between reasoning through something based on all available evidence to you, and deciding to believe in it based on that, and having "faith" in something.
I'm not saying you have to believe in the big bang, you can't bring 'faith' into questions of reason. Nor am I saying the Big Bang is even true! The point is that it results from an entirely different thought process than a faith based answer does. It is not just another kind of faith, it is an entirely other way of thinking.
"Take for example non-Euclidean geometry, you can have parallel line intersect and prove some interesting things." Excuse me, but what does spherical geometry have to do with anything here?
"So as the theory goes you destroy the laws of physics so you can have an energy eruption and the laws are formed. Hmm... doesn't require faith?"
Nope. Not one ounce. Not one thousandth of an ounce, because if the evidence is lacking, you don't accept the theory. Go research (http://arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph is a great place to start) what scientists think happened before the big bang. I guarantee there is no consensus, because we don't yet know how to find that out with any certainty, but people are trying to use reason to figure it out. No one is asking you to take those theories on faith, or to accept them at all!
"I teach the scientific method, I have the letters behind my name all the way to PostDoc and I will agree it may have happened."
I should really let this go, but against my better judgement: This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You're asking me to take it on my faith in your authority that you are correct. I'm asking you to explain why you are correct, and not to resort to faith. Plus, it's my job (as in literally the job I'm paid for, that I should get back to) to find holes in the claims of people with letters behind their names.
Gah! Done. Say whatever you want. Call my mother a whore and science a lie. I will read your post (because I am a strong believer in debate), but I won't respond for the sake of the wall. Apologies, Dan (and Dan's webmaster)!
well done, isee3dtoo. i agree 100% with your posts.
Being a vegan too you'll probably like this related Quigman panel:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20081024/cx_tmqui_uc/tmqui20081024
Both together made me laugh so I guess that's another six billion...
"Look up 'fundament' in your dictionary. It'll give you a chuckle."
-- Utah Phillips
The little alien with big eyes goes back at least to the 1960s.
Below is a link to a 2007 posting I did for my Paranoia Strikes Deep blog. If you scroll down you'll see a comic book page from Flying Saucers Comics, 1967, showing the various alien types. There's the little gray guy with the rest.
http://paranoiastrikesdeep.blogspot.com/2007/06/interstellar-fellers.html
Fetus, baby...lots of explanations for the look of this alien, but personally I think it's some sort of psychosis that causes people to see this sort of thing.
no, we wouldn't respect them danno. and the reason is simple... because we wouldn't understand them and would assume they were somehow threatening us. that's what humans do and it's REALLY really sad. that's why i decided to study it in college, so i could maybe understand why communication between certain people fails, creating conflict. and now that i understand why it fails, i see why so much in the world is f-cked up. nobody understands each other! and if another species came to our planet and tried to communicate with us, we would most likely take their tone over their meaning. kinda like how most people believe german is a very violent language with lots of spitting and phlegm. it isn't, really.. but i didn't know that until i took german for 4 years. but people think germans are angry because of the speeches delivered by hitler-- those are the only real memorable german speeches people know, so that's what people associate with german language. back to my point-- if aliens came to our planet (if they're not here already) we would immediately be threatened becuase we wouldn't understand them. and nobody "important" would take the time to try.
i think the original image of aliens came from all the area-51 stuff back in the '50s (was it the '50s?). roswell is littered with alien paraphernalia all with the big eyes and green heads... it's their fault! jk. cute post.
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