Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1277585 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-01
• Released on: 2001-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Alternative comix artists meet corporate comics trademarks in this collaborative effort. Some of the most idiosyncratic of contemporary comix artists have created comical takes on the cash cows of the DC universe. And it's all done under the guise of Bizarro, DC's wacky, other-world dimension made up of a strange race of blockheaded Superman-like characters. In the old Bizarro comics series, characters (men wear the Superman uniform with the S reversed and women look like freaky Lois Lanes) did everything backwards from our own world. This full-color anthology updates the Bizarro legend but allows the usually super hero-snubbing underground crowd to cheerfully send up classic costumed heroes like Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Readers will enjoy Kyle Baker and Liz Glass's take on Ma and Pa Kent getting a babysitter for the young Superman (remember, superbaby can fly). In Jessica Abel and Dylan Horrocks's charming Supergirl story the girl of steel chats about guys with old girlfriend Mary Marvel, who's dropped out of the heroine business to raise a family ("Every time I meet someone nice they get sucked into another dimension," says Supergirl); in their story, Jeff Smith and Paul Pope send Superman to deal with a hilariously moronic, Superman-hating creature perched on an orbiting space station. This funny and unusual collection also features work by Chip Kidd, Chris Duffy and others. Many kudos to DC Comics for keeping a healthy sense of humor.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In the overblown parlance beloved by the comic-book industry, "This is the team-up you never expected!!" And never would have got, except that DC chilled and allowed an impressive array of alternative-comics creators, including Dave Cooper, Bob Fingerman, and Gilbert Hernandez, to interpret Superman, Batman, and other hallowed, trademarked superheroes. The premise of the whole book is that Bizarro, an "imperfect duplicate" of Superman who does everything backwards, tries drawing comics, with the ensuing whacked-out results. Most of the stories resemble the parodies in Mad (fortunately, the '50s comic book Mad, not the bigger, blander "magazine"), but the best take off in other directions. The standouts include a grotesquely authentic Batman story, circa 1940; Wonder Woman's participation in a poetry slam; and Supergirl sharing girl talk with Mary Marvel at a neighborhood cafe, which is genuinely charming. Younger readers will delight in the goofiness at hand, and comics lifers will appreciate the irreverence. Bizarro might say, "This book am very funny, so nobody should buy it." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

The DC Universe for Everyone's Tastes
Mainstream comics companies are not known to experiment much; sure, they'll kill off a main character to resurrect him/her in a later "special issue," and they'll insert cultural relevance from time to time in order to boost sales. Still, they don't dare radically change the big characters because (a) financially, those characters represent valuable properties and (b) the comics fanbase want the heroes to preserve their mythic proportions. For these reasons, BIZARRO COMICS offers a refreshing take on many prominent characters from the DC Comics Universe. Numerous comics creators from the smaller prestige presses and the remnants of the "comix underground" offer their interpretations of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash and others. Since these stories take place outside the current DC continuity, they should appeal to a wide range of readers. People unfamiliar with the various forms comics writing and art can take will discover a wide range of styles here. Regular comics readers will enjoy the interpretations of familiar, beloved characters.

The impressive roster of creators for this book all deserve mention, but readers should pay special attention to the award-winning story "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter" by the creative team of Kyle Baker and Liz Glass; imagine a teenaged girl sitting a super, invulnerable baby as depicted by a Tex Avery cartoon. "Inside the Batcave" by Paul Pope and Jay Stephens explores many kids' fantasies--to actually make it into the Batman's real lair. The Wonder Woman story by Bob Fingerman and Dave Cooper, "One-Piece, Two-Piece, Red Piece, Blue Piece," should appeal to the fashion-challenged frustrations in everyone. These and the many other stories approach the DC characters with pleasure and wonder, and this volume manages to balance a postmodern savvy with a kid-friendly appeal.

DC Comics deserves credit for presenting BIZARRO COMICS, and you'll be doing yourself a favor to read it and share it with your friends.

(THIS PORTION TO THE READERS WHO DO NOT USUALLY READ COMICS) Look, I'm deliberately not going to mention the hip, respectable comics that have earned literary praise from academia and the mainstream press, because I'd like for you to consider that the comics genre itself does not focus solely on stories for children. Like prose fiction, drama, and music, comics can address numerous genres and themes. Comics provide a forum for many types of expression--not just juvenile literature. You'll have fun with this book; portions are endearing, laugh-out-loud funny, surprising, and/or poignant. You won't regret giving BIZARRO COMICS a chance.

(THIS PORTION TO THE READERS WHO USUALLY READ COMICS) If you enjoy CHASING AMY, GHOST WORLD, LOVE & ROCKETS, and the like, you will want to read BIZARRO COMICS. Even if you prefer mainstream superhero books, however, look at BIZARRO COMICS as an introduction to comics creators you may not encounter often, and then enjoy finding their other work. You'll be glad you did.

I got mine autographed by Kyle Baker!
This book features DC comics characters in stories by alternative cartoonists. The stories are not part of the regular DC continuity, so the artists are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want with them. This is not just a series of short stories, though. The book has a framing story where 5th Dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk has to defend his dimension by playing a series of games with a creature called "A". After he gets himself disqualified, Mxyzptlk is forced to find a "champion" to play on his behalf, and he accidentally picks Superman's imperfect duplicate, Bizarro. Mxyzptlk tries to teach Bizarro how to be a hero by showing him a bunch of comic books. So, Bizarro draws his own comics, which are really the ones created by the aformentioned alternative cartoonists. As for the comics themselves, well, they are different, that's for sure. Some are funny, some are serious and some are just plain weird. The most notorious story here is "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter", By Kyle Baker. It was originally supposed to be in a comic called "Elseworlds 80-Page Giant", but that comic was recalled and destroyed because some people at DC got cold feet over the comic's contents. (I don't want to give away what happens, but the story involves baby Superman having things happen to him that would kill an ordinary baby). This is a fun book that features interesting interpretations of super-heroes.

Pretty Amusing.
The variety of storytelling styles by the dozens of creators who worked on this book almost guarantees that no reader will like every single story (or, conversely, hate every one). The types of humor vary widely also: there's MAD- and PowerPuff Girl-style parodies, Ren-and-Stimpy-type weirdness, also some outright slapstick. The Kyle Baker story reads exactly like a Chuck Jones cartoon. One of the Aquaman sketches reads like Spy-Vs-Spy. A few, like the Eddie Campbell story, manage to be extremely bizarre without being particularly funny.

The stories are all 10 pages or less with the exception of the two-part 75-page framing tale involving Mxyzptlk (which is entertaining although not quite as funny as the best of the shorter works). The creators are generally people who have worked on Vertigo and "indy" comics.