Pretty much every writer and artist out there has a handful of really good ideas gestating at any moment. Those ideas typically remain in embryonic form, unless said writer has a whiz of an agent or a couple thousand dollars lying around. There's a third option, though: pitching the idea to a major player in the business. As TV shows like "Seinfeld" and "The OC" have taught us, the art of the perfect pitch is hard. A good pitch should easily hook fickle producers and executives while avoiding too many details, which might put them to sleep. Two new comics anthologies, "Proof of Concept" from AIT/PlanetLar and "Bizarro World" from DC Comics, play this game of "What if?" with some intriguing results.

"Bizarro World" features an astonishing array of independent comics artists and writers, comedians, musicians and others taking control of the company's stable of characters. A follow-up to 2000's "Bizarro Comics," "Bizarro World" is a thick mishmash of superhero parodies, quick riffs on some intriguing concepts, and a few serious, heartfelt tales to keep things from getting too wacky. Some of the funniest stories are courtesy of Evan Dorkin, creator of the gleefully violent "Milk and Cheese" series from a few years back. His tale of Batman adopting a circus monkey after a monkey family flaming chainsaw juggling act goes horribly awry is a riotous send-up of the ridiculous animal sidekicks all the DC heroes had in the 1950s and '60s. Some of the best pieces of "Bizarro World" stick heroes in normal, mundane settings. In "The Red Bee Returns," Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez try to update Silver Age grade-Z hero the Red Bee for a modern audience. The Red Bee's greatest nemesis turns out to be a focus group of jaded teenagers who mock the puffy pink sleeves on his costume and disparage his army of trained bees. Later, the Bee's comeback effort lands him at the top of a national magazine's list of the lamest superheroes. Mike Doughty, former Soul Coughing front man, has perhaps one of the best shorts in the book. Doughty gives Aquaman an acoustic guitar and turns him into a lonely, sensitive guy struggling to perform at an open mike. Of course, with nearly three dozen stories in "Bizarro World," not all of them are a hit, but the sheer variety makes it worth reading.

While "Bizarro" is firmly entrenched in the world of comics, "Proof of Concept" takes a more Hollywood approach to storytelling. Written by independent publishing guru Larry Young, "Proof of Concept" is a collection of six short stories, framed as though Young is pitching each idea to his agent over the phone. At one point, Young says, "You know I love the high concept," and "Proof" makes it clear he does. "Zombie Dinosaur" starts out with a, you guessed it, zombie dinosaur attacking a military strike team in the desert and ends with the bones of a prehistoric fish attacking an unsuspecting museum visitor. Another killer concept is "Emancipating Lincoln," a sci-fi mystery set in a future where clones of Abe Lincoln make up the whole of the population. A young construction worker (who, of course, looks like Abe) finds a stash of five-dollar bills in an old building and hires a grizzled detective (who also looks like Abe) to find out why the man on the money looks just like them. For the most part, "Proof of Concept" is great fun-Young's stories are full of cool, "gee-whiz" moments, brought to life with sharp, kinetic artwork by the likes of Steven Sanders, Jeff Johns and John Flynn. The only trouble spot in "Proof" is the last story, "The Bod," which isn't so much a pitch as a complete story by Young originally printed by Image Comics a few years ago. Like the rest of the stories in the book, the concept behind "The Bod" is great-a struggling actress gains fame after becoming invisible-but having the whole tale set next to five other 12-page mini-comics makes it seem too long and less intriguing than the rest of the book.