In the Superman comic books, Bizarro is an imperfect copy of the Man of Steel. He has pale, faceted skin and wears a backwards "S" on his costume. He always speaks in the third person, he's dumb as a post, and his grasp of grammar is very poor, so he tends to say things like "Bizarro am not a enemy of Superman! Bizarro am Superman's bestest friend!"

In the old "pre-Crisis" DC Universe, Bizarro was introduced in a 1958 "Superboy" comic. The perversely backwards villain was a hit with fans, and he was soon moved up into Superman's regular rogue's gallery. Bizarro had his own planet he lived on called Htrae, which was a cube. There, just about everyone looked like Bizarro Superman and Bizarro Lois Lane (The original Bizarro wore a sign around his neck identifying him as "Bizarro #1"). A Bizarro's thought processes are totally backwards -- someone can be sent to jail for doing good deeds, and "You am ugly cow, Bizarro Lois!" is considered a high compliment (and an indicator that someone's about to get some Bizarro Nookie).

In the "post-Crisis" universe, Bizarro was a creation of Lex Luthor. Designed to be a clone of Superman, he turned out to have a flaw that caused his body and mind to degenerate. Though he's been killed multiple times, he makes frequent returns, either as another imperfect clone or as a magically generated duplicate of the Man of Steel.

The word "Bizarro" has come to mean, in pop culture, anything that seems to be a strangely backwards copy of something else. There was an episode of "Seinfeld" where Elaine met people who looked similar to Jerry, George, and Kramer, but who had stable jobs, nice personalities, and healthy relationships. They were referred to as Bizarro Jerry, Bizarro George, and Bizarro Kramer. And in an episode of the "Sealab 2021" cartoon, the crew was tormented by Bizarros, who looked sorta like the original crew members, but wore black leather, had weird cybernetic or genetic alterations, acted even weirder than the regular crew, and liked to say "Bizarro!" over and over and over.

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Also, Bizarro is a popular and very odd comic strip created by Dan Piraro. Started in 1985 to replace Gary Larson's "The Far Side" at Chronicle Features after Larson moved his comic to Universal Press Syndicate, the strip features surreal situations, lush artwork, and completely weird humor. Piraro's work on the strip has earned him the National Cartoonists' Society's award for the Best Newspaper Cartoon Panel in 200, 2001, and 2002.

Piraro hides tiny images of pies, firecrackers, bunnies, flying saucers, and more in almost every cartoon he draws.

The name of the third album by the Wedding Present. Released in 1989 on RCA Records. The US version (released in 1990) of the album also contained songs from the UK Brassneck single. All songs written by David Gedge, except Box Elder which was written by Mr. Stephen Malkamus. The song was uncredited on the US album, which led some people to believe that Pavement was covering the wedding present on Westing (by musket and sextant) (that is, if they hadn't heard Slay Tracks (1933-1969) before). All the album tracks (1-9,14) were produced Chris Allison and engineered by Steve Lyon. The Brassneck single (10-13) was produced/engineered by Steve Albini.

This is the track listing for the US version.

1. Brassneck
2. Crushed
3. No
4. Thanks
5. Kennedy
6. What Have I Said Now?
7. Granadaland
8. Bewitched
9. Take Me!
10. Brassneck
11. Don't Talk, Just Kiss
12. Gone
13. Box Elder
14. Be Honest

Indie comics luminaries Carol Lay, (Story Minute), Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese), and Dylan Horrocks (Hicksville) take on the overly-familiar likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in the same way that the late-80s hip-hoppers like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Eric B. and Rakim cribbed beats from their parents' record collections. The results are just as fresh.
--Baltimore City Paper.

Daddy smells like waffles.
--a chicken, legally adopted by Mr. Mxyzptlk

The cover by Matt Groening shows Superman's imperfect duplicate, Bizarro, blowing from soap pipe square bubbles containing befuddled renditions of DC Comics' superheroes. On the 200+ pages within, an assortment of less-than-mainstream writers and artists reinterpret the world's most famous super-hero pantheon, with occasionally brilliant results.

Bizarro, first published in 2001, sandwiches its tales between the beginning and ending of a story that could take place in DC continuity: Bizarro and Mxyzptlk must join forces to defeat a game-playing super-alien. The introductory section seems overly long; the conclusion makes amends with some truly inspired silliness. We know that in a book this strange Bizarro needs must emerge victorious, and his triumphs at Finkelstein and "Behind the Rock Music" testimonial, free form prove genuinely entertaining.

Still, it's what's between these two slices of surreal life that sells this sandwich, and the fixings are decidedly mixed.

The best of the anthology works very well. The largely dialogue-free "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter" by Kyle Baker and Elizabeth Glass provides an amusing-- and somewhat disturbing-- look at Clark Kent's childhood. In Dylan Horrocks and Jessica Abel's "Clubhouse of Solitude," Supergirl and a retired Mary Marvel meet at a coffeeshop and engage in girltalk. It plays entirely as such a meeting might, if the DC Universe were real, and the effect is both charming and disorienting. Possibly the most original story in the anthology, it could actually take place in a regular DC comic; it just typically wouldn't.

Likewise, mainstream heroes such as Warlock and Animal Man have explored existentialist dilemmas before. None, however, have quite the bitterly comic effect of a story, written by Chris Duffy of Nickelodeon magazine, in which the original Green Lantern fails to dissolve some of his creations, and they are forced to come to grips with their lives before they fade to nothingness. In yet another story, Joe Average Guy becomes a Green Lantern Corps reservist.

And so it goes. Ariel Bordeaux and Ellen Forney send Wonder Woman to a poetry slam. Evan Dorkin and Stephen Wiseman present a grim view of sidekicks' lives. Love and Rockets' Gilbert Hernandez reconceptualizes the Justice League of America and their opponents as feuding children. Andy Merrill and Jason Little present a postmodern Aquaman adventure told by a kid playing with his bath toys. Batgirl appears as a junior high student with a teen witch fixation.

Other efforts prove less successful. A handful of idiosyncratic Batman adventures appear. While fans might find it interesting to see the Dark Knight presented in these odd contexts, most of these tales don't really amount to much. Among them, "Who Erased the Eraser?" perhaps provides the most original look at the bat-mythos.

Bizarro Comic won "best anthology" at both the2002 Harvey Awards and Eisner Awards. The best of its stories will appeal to a broad audience, but most have been written for people with an established interest in comic books. Despite the shifts of context, they've been written with DC's approval-- and a fannish affection for the original characters.