Obsessive Humor

Bizarro is brought to you today by Censorship International. "Hey! You can't do that!"

As I mentioned yesterday, I accidentally left my current cartoons at home so I'm using stuff that is on my laptop, hence the date of this cartoon.

This is one that never ran in the papers because it was feared that people with OCD would rise up against newspaper editors all across the land and cause trouble for me. One might be tempted to say, "Don't give in, Dan. To hell with them if they can't take a joke." But editors don't like losing a day of work answering angry emails, letters and phone calls and may decide to replace Bizarro with a less controversial clone. That would be bad for me. So this isn't really censorship as much as it is my personal editor advising me against it and me agreeing.

I experienced a bit of this last week when I ran a cartoon about dyslexia. I didn't lose any papers over it (that I know of), but some folks complained. I have OCD and dyslexia in my family (and a touch of OCD myself) so I feel I have the right to poke a little fun at me and mine. Humor is an age-old human device for getting through tough times and situations, so I am not as sensitive about it as many people apparently are. God knows that vegans get regularly grilled in humor venues of all kinds, but I take it with grain of salt (or a salt lick) and laugh at myself and my kind. My folks taught me that. Laughing at ridicule and teasing takes the fun out of it for the other guy, and the sting out of it for you.

The blog is good for this kind of cartoon, which will likely never see wider publication. Glad I had this opportunity to share it with you, hope no one has taken time off from checking the door locks and stove handles to get offended.

Jerky

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by My Faulty Brain.

Hello from Sunny San Diego, my BizarroBlogBuddies. Just before I left my estate in Brooklyn yesterday, I loaded all the appropriate cartoons that I would need to continue posting on this blog onto a little dealy-bobber stick so I could bring them with me. Then I left the dealy-bobber stick in my computer at home. What I have learned from this experience is that dealy-bobber sticks, no matter how well-designed, do not work at a distance of 2400 miles.

So I'm posting this older cartoon, which happens to be one of my faves from last year, because it was already on my laptop. 

Okay, kids, I'm off to the Comic Con to see strange people in stranger outfits. Next week I'll post a blog with my own pics from this year's show and a ridiculous running comentary.

I hope you like this panel and are not going to be a jerk about it.

I'm not at SDCC...

I'm unable to go to the San Diego ComicCon, but I'll be following along with Bully the Stuffed Bull as he photo-blogs his way through the con. If you cannot be there as well, I recommend Bully's fun posts as the next best thing to being there.

Comic Con

Don't come by my house this weekend looking for me, I'll be in San Diego at the world's biggest comics convention. If you've never been, you should go. And no need to take recreational drugs ahead of time, the tens of thousands of attendees are beyond the strangest mushroom trip anyone's ever experienced.

If you're going, come by the NCS (National Cartoonists Society) booth and say hello. I'll be selling and signing books, trading cards, prints, and some of my old T-shirts, the ones that are too stained to wear or don't fit me anymore since I've been taking steroids. Since I'm not a spoiled professional athlete with way more money than couth, autographs and pictures with me are completely free. I will be charging for sketches, however, but they're well worth it since I draw not with ink, but with my own blood from a self-inflicted bullet wound in my leg. You don't get that kind of dedication from your average cartoonist.

Don't come to my house this weekend looking to rob it, either. CHNW will be there and she's currently fostering two rescued pit bulls. They love her and they won't like you.

Free Valium

This Bizarro is brought to you by the struggling executives of America's oil companies. "We don't want your pity, just your firstborn, an arm, a leg, your soul, and another Republican in the White House."

Since I live in NYC, the only city in America where you can not own a car and still get anywhere, anytime, any day of the year, the price of gas isn't on my mind all that much.

I drive a Vespa scooter, which used to cost me about $4 to fill up, now nearly $8. If I drive it a lot every day, which I rarely do unless I'm smuggling illegals in from Canada, I fill up once a week. More typically, I fill up once a month.

I do feel the crunch when I fly, however, airline prices are out of sight, and the cost of cabs and car services in NYC keep going up.

What is the best thing we can do to alleviate the gas crisis? Elect a president who isn't butt buddies with the Saudis. (The ones who blew up the towers. Remember?)

Am I a genius, or could a box turtle to figure this out?

Bubble Court

Bizarro is brought to you today by Where The Hell? Industries. "Answering the question, 'Where the Hell did THAT come from?' since 1985."

In all modesty, let me say that I love this gag. I have no idea where it came from or why, it just fell out of my head when I leaned over my drawing table to write gags one morning , and I giggled.

It features one of my favorite cartoon tricks, to draw a picture that at first glance looks like something familiar, and at closer inspection is something entirely different. I didn't invent this trick, of course, I've just always loved it.

Below is perhaps my favorite example of it of my entire career. Tonto points at smoke signals in the distance. Or does he?












Click on the image to biggerize it and get the full effect.

I included this cartoon in the retrospective-of-my-career-so-far book, Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro. If you like me or my work, it's a must-have book. I'm not saying that just because I want to sell the books (without decent sales numbers, you can't keep publshing), but because it honestly is a great book for people who like my work. Lots of unpublished paintings, sketches, photos, as well as my favorite cartoons from over the years, a humorous autobiography (that I wrote myself!), stories from my comedy show tours, controversial opinions about everything from tofu to our ravaged nation, you name it.

Order a case or two here. You and your descendants will thank me.

Fruity Fun For Free

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Teresa Heinz Foundation for Condiment Awareness.

How often do you think to put fruit on your hamburger or hot dog? Or have pasta with fruit sauce? What about dipping your french fries in a fruit salsa?

Well even if you think you would never do such a thing, I am here to tell you that you would too! You do it all the time! For the plain scientific truth is, the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable!!!

For eight more little-known facts, one of which has to do with handcuffs, go here.