(Hint: For a bigger, less blurry glimpse at the intricate glories of the above cartoon, point your cursor [little black arrow on your screen] to any part of the image, then push the button on your mouse [the plastic device that controls the arrow.])Bizarro is made possible today by Ugly Wedding Dresses.
I've always liked to think about heroes and the unpublished details of their lives before they were famous. What was Clark Kent like as a child? How do you control a kid with superhuman strength in the throes of the Terrible Twos? It is common for children of this age to throw a spoon across the room. How did Ma and Pa Kent avoid getting impaled?
As a Catholic kid, I wondered about Jesus's childhood. Did he have friends his age, or was he the nerdy, overly philosophical kid that nobody wanted to play with? Did he ever get mad at another kid for taking his toy, strike him dead, then bring him back to life before anyone found out?
At what age did Mickey Mouse start wearing those big, dumb shoes? Once he was rich and famous he could afford to be isolated from the riffraff, but before that, was he never chased by a cat? You certainly would want better shoes if you were.
I think a Showtime or HBO series about Superman as a small child would be great. The Kents try to deal with a toddler with superhuman strength, the ability to fly, x-ray vision (there goes their sex life), all without letting any of their friends, family or local townfolk find out about his powers. Year by year, as the actor who plays the toddler grows up, we follow his various struggles with typical childhood trauma through the filter of his tremendous powers. The show isn't about him weilding justice or solving crimes, just coping without flipping out and throwing his schoolmates into the next county when they make fun of his new shoes. Or getting caught looking through the walls of the girl's locker room.
If someone does come up with that series, they'd better be ready to prove they documented it before the date of this blog, because I will come after them with a team of Kryptonite-weilding lawyers.
18 comments:
But what if we gave you credit before we filmed the show? Hmm? What then?
This is one of my favorite Bizarros of all time. The theme is great, the dialog is good, just needs the "wait till your father comes home" portion, and the upside-down pie fit in well.
I love the art coloring and overall artwork, and I wondered how hard would it be to draw Martha in that pose without a model. So did you have your CHNW or one of children sit on the floor that way as you drew?
You have a pirate book, maybe a super hero themed book is next.
Did you ever read that story by Larry Niven, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex? You can just imagine a teenage Clark Kent, with a bedroom ceiling full of holes...
Brian, that article is brilliant. Thanks for the link.
Actually, there are some ancient documents (c. 4th c. AD) claiming to be records of Jesus' childhood. Supposedly, He made clay sparrows come to life and, when another little boy bumped into Him, He cursed him to whither up and die. It's pretty obvious why these didn't make it into the Bible, but you're not the only one to wonder about that time.
Personally, I've always felt sorry for Jesus' brothers and sisters:
"Why can't you be more like your brother, Jesus? Jesus eats all his vegetables. Jesus cleans his room..."
"Yeah, mom, Jesus is perfect, isn't he?"
For a irreverent view of Jesus's childhood, I loved the depiction in the opening of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. It was a slight departure from his usual fare, which is sci-fi/fantasy, but it still had his blend of goofy/black/absurdist humor.
Dan,
loved tyhe combover ants panel.....you know that guy 0m CNN David GErgen, with the most ridiculpous com bover ever.....funny.....they think nobvody can see it...but on TV thje cvamera gets all angels and everomne sees jhwo silluy
her looks on TV and you know his wife Anne is a therapist. go figure...and HE is giving advice on PR and he can't even do his own PR right. he looks like the least trustworthy person ever with that combOVEr.......give it up GergeN
You will have to get behind Larry Niven who has documented this kind of thing in "man of steel, woman of kleenex" or some such title. (reference intent to sue)
Today's comic reminds me of the panel you did a long time ago where you showed a desktop, laptop, palmtop and then finger(nail?) top. Is this maybe a sequel to that cartoon?
i thought that was covered by Smallville on the tellie..
i want to know what zorro was like as a kid...i bet hacking all those zzzs into everything really hacked his parents off..
i bet his medical bills were very very high.
@ isee3dtoo...I've been drawing people for so long that I don't need reference unless I'm trying to make it look like a specific person. I occasionally reference an old car or a famous building or something, but the vast majority of everything in my cartoons is from my head.
@ brian t...Great essay, thanks for the link.
@ Pneumatic Death...I'll have to give that book a look. Never heard of it but it sounds fascinating.
@ Jeremy...by "today's comic" do you mean the one I posted or the one in newspapers? I'm not sure I see the sequel reference.
Today's comic as in the comic in newspapers today.
Your comic from the late 90's I mentioned seemed to be alluding to the fact that computers are getting smaller and smaller. Today's comic has child stating in his question that "computers became to small, thin and lightweight that they disappeared completely"
I apologize that I don't have the date you published that comic, I don't have any of your books from that period so I am just going by memory.
Want to know what Jesus’ childhood was like? Have a read at Christopher Moore’s book called “Lamb – The Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal.” :-)
i am sure David German and John McCain understood the combover panel last Sunday very
well........do you know why men wear combovers, silly as they look to
us observers? I ONCE read a good interview with a CO man, and he said
it was for psychological reasons of his own, he KNEW it looks silly
and HE knew everyone can see he is really bald, esp when wind is
blowing or TV CAmeras cover new angle but he said the main thing is
that when he wakes up in morning and looks in mirror after coiffing
his combover so nice, he FEELS young and handsome again, so that is
all he cares about, the CO is for him, looking striaght into the
mirror angle, he does not CARe what others think,.,.very narciassitic
but also i understand the reason better now, it;'s for HIM not for
others.....still very weird....in Japan they are called BAR CODES, in
Japanese - ENglish, prononced BARU CODO, becuase they look like bar
codes on shopping items.....funny?
Great cartoon! Kyle Baker also did a nice variation on this idea in the short comic story, "Letetia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter." It was in one of DC's "Bizarro" anthologies a few years back. So, again, you'll have to get in line to take credit for the idea. But it's still a good one, nice work. (and I assume you were kidding about taking credit, anyway, right?)
@PIRARO If I had to pick a quintessential Christopher Moore book, I'd choose "A Dirty Job" rather than "Lamb". I enjoyed both, and the person who reads the audiobooks for both does an excellent job.
the concept and drawing details on this cartoon is just brilliantly whimsical. the cracked house paneling is such an enjoyable detail for me, the upside down pie is great too!
Times have changed; today, kids with this kind of violent behavior are labeled with Attention Deficit Disorder and pumped full of medication.
Post a Comment