DAN PIRARO (author of BIZARRO Comics) writes: The bizarre and convoluted imagery of modern-day Christmas has fascinated me since I was old enough to notice it. (Sometime in my teens.) I’ve since learned that there are many and various ancient myths and holidays that were incorporated into it over the centuries, including the virgin birth (the birth of heroes to virgins, often with some kind of god as the father, are common in many pre-Christian mythologies), the king born of poverty (another common mythological element and likely the reason that to this day, Americans like to vote for a “down home” candidate for president, the sort you’d want to “have a beer with”), the Christmas tree, (a pagan symbol of the winter solstice), and Santa Claus (derived from the pre-Christian, Germanic god, Odin, who flew through the skies giving gifts at Yule [Dec 25] on an eight-legged horse, later morphed into eight reindeer.) Anyway, for the past couple of Christmases, I’ve had some fun combining modern elements of the holiday with the original nativity scene of Christian mythology.