Imitation Bizarros? by Mike Gold
Many years ago my dear friend, mystery novelist Elaine Viets, took a look at the growth rate and postulated that by, well, roughly now virtually every American would be an Elvis imitator.
Luckily, we came to our senses. Or maybe not. Either way, I love logic.
Another dear friend, the late Bill Martin, would go crazy reading Bizarro stories because of their lack of internal consistency. That’s why I loved Bill; he would actually think of such a thing. But damn it, he died too soon. Had he lived he would see that we are coming to a world not unlike that of the Bizarros, but with a day-to-day internal consistency.
For example, last week I pontificated upon the impact of our rapidly deteriorating economy upon the comics and popular culture community. It was absolutely brilliant; you should re-read it. As it was posted at 6:46 AM Central time (yeah – we’re out east; don’t ask!) I wrote the column before the big vote in Congress. The one that was voted down. People felt a $700,000,000,000.00 bail out was too expensive. OK, fine. I can dig that. Later that day, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 777 points. I love symmetry.
People freaked. Damn! We’ve got to put a stop to that! How can we get that fixed? I know! Let’s add some pork to the bill – spread some additional loot around and buy us the needed votes! So within five days a $700,000,000,000.00 bill that was too expensive evolved into an $840,000,000,000.00 bill that was just right! It was so well-greased that the bill was actually printed before passage and given to Still-President Bush for signing at the appropriate time.
This, folks, is Bizarro logic. And it prevails.
By the way, did the stock market react in gratitude for each and every American chipping in about $3000 to pay for this bill? Nope; the market dropped another 157 points.
I ask you this. Would a Bizarro-Elvis imitator have to be, well, the real Elvis? Don’t think about it; check and see who just bought your bank. Just accept the prevailing Bizarro logic. As if you have any choice.
In the words of the great, great man: “Me am not scared at all.”
Mike Gold is editor-in-chief of ComicMix.
We used to make up Bizarro Mr. Rogers songs.There is only one wayTo say I hate youOnly one wayTo sayI hate you
It's really a good thing. All we need to do is use Gold Kryptonite to reverse the effects of the upcoming depression. Or is it the Blue Kryptonite…
Wow, you're older than you look.The cool thing about Bizarro is that it went from comics into our general lexicon. People who have never seen a comic book understand the concept.
Thank you Jerry Seinfeld.There were a few "Bizarro World" sketches on Saturday Night Live many years back, well before the Seinfeld episode. Here's a transcript of one – http://snltranscripts.jt.org/81/81bbizarro.phtml
Actually, I wasn't referring to Seinfeld. In fact, I've only watched one or two episodes of the show — I liked everything about it but Seinfeld.Bizarrodom entered the general reality before the ancient SNL routine. In fact, I could swear I saw references at Second City back in the Wendt/Kazurinsky/Gross days.This, by the way, is Bizarro's 50th anniversary. In fact, if you were to honor the event by the actual cover date, October is Bizarro's 50th anniversary!Rotten Birthday, young man!
" could swear I saw references at Second City back in the Wendt/Kazurinsky/Gross days."Considering the sketches were done when Gross and Kazurinsky were on SNL, there may be a connection there. Tho Mr. Mike O'Donahue is credited as the writer, that may simply be due to his position as head writer.
Michael O'Donohue was a major comics fan.
And he produced some fine comics for National Lampoon — as well as the astonishingly brilliant "Adventures of Phoebe Zeitgeist" for Evergreen magazine, drawn by Frank Springer. Phoebe dates better than Evergreen, and it's some of Frank's best work in his career.
I always wondered about the use of Bizarro in popular culture, especially in the Saturday Night Live sketches. Wasn't that copyright infringement? Didn't DC try to at least get a credit acknowledgment of the concept if not some cash?
Lawyers make a lot of money bashing their heads over these subtle points, but there would be some problems with such a suit. The sketches were parody using elements that had, almost by definition, become known within our culture. They didn't sell the shows as Bizarro, they sold them as Saturday Night Live, so there's no trademark infringement. And NBC didn't make money off of those sketches per se; they made their money off of the show itself and would have made about the same money had they used some other popular sketch.These same concepts have allowed all kinds of Superman parodies over the years, including several classic ones by Steve Allen — who happened to look a lot like Curt Swan's Clark Kent.Most important, as John Boni said in his Citizen Gaines story (National Lampoon), it's satire.
One of the running gags in EC Comics' Batman parody in Mad (the comic) back in the day were the constant reminders that it was a lampoon, and the DC could/should not sue them. The big sticking point is one-time (or at least limited time) use, and no attempts to suggest that the parody character IS the real character. Dave Sim famously got a C&D letter from Marvel over Wolverroach, which he published in the lettercolumn. In one of the phonebooks he admitted that Marvel had a point – he'd put Wolverroach on the cover of several issues in a row, and all marvel would have to do is find one kid who mistook him for Logan to make a viable case. So Dave relented, and nothing ever came of it. He did, however, mockingly draw attention to the purple aardvvark monster named "S'ym" that palled around with Magik in X-Men, telling Claremont to go nuts with him.
"Me am very unhappy about this article, it wrong in every way. Me am happy with President Bush and every decision he make. Maybe Bizzarro should not take him back to Bizarro world to be President there! Me am think Palin very ugly, she should not be Bizarro's old wife!""Hulk is strongest one there is!" – Bizarro
Me am John McCain! Me crawling for Bizzaro Prezdent! Me Maverick! Agree all Bush do! See? That am Mav-rick! Me big Unregulator! Now me say, "Big Rules Good!" Change good! Mav-Rick! Bad Money Men NEED new rules. Me am a Keating Five! Mav-RICK! Big Unregulator make good Regulator! Make sense to ME! Me a Maverick to LOGIC! See? Me run away me own ideas! Me Maverick to Me! Bad Democraps! Me a BY Party Son! Not like Crappy Stupid Democraps. I reach cross aisle. Shake hands one hand! Rabbit Punch other! By Party Son, Maverick! Crappy Stupid Big Brain 'Bama. He eat fancy lettuce. 'Bama like Terror-Fists! 'Bama say look at past! Me no look at past. Me war hero! Me live in box. No look at past. Look past past to past I say look at! MAV-RICK! MAhhhV-RiiIICK! –Me John McCain! Me approve message.
So…..if Bozo the clown is exposed to Blue Craptonite, does he become Bozarro#1?But seriously folks……..Bizzaro has become as much of a serious literary icon, as valid as anything out of Swift's Gulliver's Travels……..Wonderful that mid 20th century "Low Brow" lit inadvertantly gave the world as definitive a characterization as Bizarro.I've also personally suspected Mike Tyson to be a Bizarro in disguise. He be not da foolin' wid me.