Tell me this isn't more entertaining than the original "Ziggy"

Woodpeckers destroy Zomby's home!

For comparison's sake, here's the original Ziggy:

(today's zomby) And would anyone mind if I dumped a bunch of images into one post? No? Great!

First, today's Zomby:

Here's an unused Zomby Minus Zomby

Now that we have that taken care of, let's move on to other matters. Recently, I've been going through my computer deciding what files should stay and which should go, and I've come across a bunch of random junk which was apparently intended for use on this blog but which I never got around to actually posting. Some of these are incomplete. Some are just arbitrary. In many cases, I've forgotten whatever it was I was going to do with these. But before they're consigned to the ignominious fate of the Recycle Bin, I thought I'd give them one more shot at glory.

Okay with you? Great! Let's go!

(today's zomby) Get it? Huh? Do ya? Huh?

You guessed right! This was a clandestine reference to that lovable alien ALF and his penchant for eating cats. Remember ALF and what innocent, carefree times we had with him?

Yeah, that was all a lie. When the camera wasn't rolling, Gordon Shumway was profane and racist, mocking people with Tourette's Syndrome and making extremely inappropriate advances to teen-aged cast mate Andrea Elson. (Warning: NSFW language ahead. And it's all coming from ALF!)


Yeah, Elson's obvious discomfort makes this especially cringe-worthy. I think we all need to go pray now.

P.S. - I think this is one of the many cartoons which works better if Ziggy/Zomby is removed entirely. Here, see for yourself..

(today's zomby) AND SOME CHEAP LAUGHS AT THE EXPENSE OF LOCAL NEWS ANCHORS!

Ouch! Well, regardless, I'm still occasionally taking Ziggy cartoons and improving them by removing Ziggy himself and any other disagreeable elements. Here, for instance, is a before-and-after comparison of yesterday's Ziggy:

Isn't that second version nice -- sort of peaceful and contemplative? I find it's really soothing and therapeutic to remove Ziggy from his own cartoon. And speaking of things which bring me comfort, if however fleeting....

Local news shows are a source of great amusement to me. They're definitely a relic of the pre-Internet era, and they still rely on shameless exploitation of human misery, cheap fear-mongering, and appalling sentimentality for ratings. The news anchors and reporters, with their inflated egos and perfectly-coiffed hair, are always good for a laugh... as everyone from The Simpsons to Will Ferrell have demonstrated. One of my dearest guilty pleasures, I will admit, is watching news bloopers, which are available in abundance on YouTube. Here are some examples of what I mean. You will see some of the same clips repeated, but all these compilations are worth watching. A few Fox News clips are in there, too, which is only fitting since Fox is essentially a national network with the "local news" mindset.







If you want cheap laughs at the expense of contemptible people, look no further.

(today's zomby) AND MY FIRST EVER WEB POLL!

I don't know if I've ever told you this, readers, but I have one very specific goal with each day's Zomby! cartoon: to improve upon the original Ziggy. Some days I make it, some days I don't. Ziggy can be maddening as source material, since it's very repetitive and recycles the same few scenarios over and over. Worse yet, the strip often gets in ruts, doing jokes about the same thing several times during the course of a week. Lately, for instance, there have been lots of jokes about Ziggy's parrot.

Like this one from today, Friday, October 7, 2011:

When I saw this cartoon, all I could think about was Samuel Beckett's famous and oft-repeated quote: "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." The only way I could see to salvage this scene was to take Ziggy and his parrot out of it.

Like so:

Was I right? Was I wrong? I have decided to let you, the readers, decide. Use the poll below to tell me whether this cartoon is better with or without Ziggy.



If this gimmick succeeds, I may incorporate it into Zomby! as a regular feature. With each cartoon, I'd give you the opportunity to tell me if I succeeded or failed in my quest to improve upon the original.

Experimental ZOMBY: A meditation on absence and abandonment

A suitcase on a bed. A closed door. A group of mirthless travelers standing in line. Finally, an empty airport. In today's Ziggy, these are merely the props and settings for a tired gag about airport security. But with the title character removed, this becomes a haunting meditation on absence and abandonment. Someone seems to be discarding his life and his home for unknown reasons, shedding his very existence like a snake sheds his skin. Perhaps all of these people in line are giving up their lives as well. Some catastrophe has caused them to leave behind all that they know. One is reminded of the brilliant 2000 Swedish film, Songs from the Second Floor, which you really ought to see right this minute. Perhaps the trailer will convince you. Keep in mind, the trailer is NSFW but it's Sunday so you shouldn't be at W anyway. Songs comes pretty darned close to being a zombie movie, as you'll soon see, so I hope it is covered someday on Mail Order Zombie.



And thus ends Experimental Zomby week. Join us tomorrow for "classic Zomby."

Three! Three! Three ZOMBYs in ONE!!!!

All this week I've been bitching and moaning about how ugly and repetitive the latest Ziggy cartoons have been. Well, someone must have heard those prayers because today's installment is BEYOND AWESOME! So awesome, in fact, that I have to offer you readers a triple view of it.

First, here's the Zomby Minus Zomby version:



Nice, right? But the look of utter horror on Ziggy's face in the original is so sublime that I must share it with you. With the pesky dialogue removed, this becomes a moment of pure, arbitrary cruelty. Witness for yourself:



And, even though this is "experimental" week, I just had to do a traditional ZOMBY!!! of this one:

Experimental ZOMBY: You have defeated me, Tom Wilson.

Tom Wilson II, current writer and artist of Ziggy.

Greetings.

Today, for the first time in months, I am not offering you a parody -- zombie-fied or otherwise -- of the most-current Ziggy cartoon. The reason? The cartoon in question could suck the chrome off a fender. It's yet another scene of Ziggy talking to yet another generic female functionary who sits behind yet another brown desk. There's nothing I can do with it.

Congratulations, Tom Wilson (or more likely, Tom Wilson II). You have broken my spirit, you magnificent bastard. I bow to you.

Because today's Ziggy is for all intents and purposes unusable, I offer instead a TRIUMVIRATE! of vintage Ziggys, all with the eponymous character tastefully removed.

Enjoy...





P.S. - I especially like the one with the bird looking at the hamburger.

Experimental ZOMBY: Damsels in an avocado-colored nightmare world!

For the second day in a row, Zomby Minus Zomby offers you a flaxen-haired generic female functionary trapped in a guacamole-tinted nightmare room. There are no doors, no windows, no natural light or hope of escape. Just corners.

Experimental ZOMBY: The horror of the unknown

As countless horror movies have demonstrated, sometimes what we don't see is much scarier than what we do see. There is inherent terror in the unknown, the unseen. Take, for example, today's Zomby Minus Zomby. What, exactly, is causing our generic female functionary to back away from her computer screen in alarm?

We shall never know.

The Ziggy/Zomby coloring conundrum

Here, gentle reader, is how yesterday's Zomby Minus Zomby should have looked:



I said this was going to be an experimental week, and I see now that I was right.

It's been a few years since I did those original cartoons removing Ziggy from Ziggy, and since then something dreadful has happened to the coloring of the strip. Back then, the weekday Ziggys used solid blocks of flat color -- which to me worked very well with the very cartoony, stylized look of the feature and gave it a bold, bright look. Now, though, the colorists are using these wimpy "naturalistic" colors which fade in and out. It must be some cheap, easy Photoshop effect. In a word, I hate it. So I guess this week, I will also be "color correcting" the cartoons as I see fit.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two cartoons which illustrates the coloring difference. (Fading colors vs. solid colors.)

Experimental ZOMBY: A goldfish dreams of a better life...

This is a perfect example of why I wanted to do a week of Zomby Minus Zomby. The original Ziggy today is some humorless crap in which the Z-man criticizes his pet goldfish for not being as entertaining as cats or dogs. But in my version, the goldfish takes center stage. He stares soulfully, wistfully at the image of an animal (a dog? a cat? a pony?) on the TV screen and yearns for a life he can never have. Adding poignancy to the scene is the fact that the television seemingly depicts a bleak winter landscape. To the goldfish, even this is preferable to his confinement in a glass bowl.

ZOMBY: The week-long experiment begins!

You might be thinking, "That sucks. Where's Zomby?" Allow me to explain. Several years ago, I became quite fascinated by two ongoing parodies of Garfield. The more famous one, Garfield Minus Garfield, takes existing Garfield strips and merely removes the title character. The second, arguably more creative spoof is called Arbuckle and alters Jim Davis' original strips in two ways: the artwork is entirely redone (in a variety of styles by numerous artists) and Garfield's thought bubbles are removed. The basic point of both GMG and Arbuckle are the same: when you remove Garfield's wisecracks, his owner Jon Arbuckle is revealed as a deeply disturbed and lonely man.

Inspired by those parodies, I wanted to see what would be revealed if the title character were removed from Tom Wilson's long-running cartoon feature Ziggy. I found some of the results to be startling. Without its titular bald man, Ziggy became a record of a strange, surreal, haunted world where either: (a) characters rage impotently at no one, or (b) nothing happens whatsoever. Take a look:








I've been meaning to return to that world for a few years, and I've decided to do so through my blog all this week. Now, granted, today's cartoon isn't particularly suited for the Zomby Minus Zomby treatment. But I can only work with what I'm given.

And if it's any kind of bonus to you, all the cartoons this week will be in color. If this doesn't appeal to you, things will be back to normal by next Monday. In the meantime, try to appreciate these cartoons as opportunities for restful meditation.