Scary World of Danger

Bizarro is brought to you today by Urban Health Hazards.

If your local paper prints its comics in color on weekdays as well as Sunday, you may have seen this cartoon in a different form. I was out of town and unable to send my own color files in time and so the syndicate used their usual coloring service to color a week's worth of Bizarros in mid-January. Many cartoonists opt to use this kind of service all the time, but I like my cartoons to look different, so I do them myself. Below is the cartoon as it appeared in such papers.

As you can see, these commercial services do a much simpler job on the comics than I like to do, hence the extra work I put in (without extra pay.) I think it's worth it.

I've long had a problem with America's tendency to want to make everything so safe that you can scarcely hurt yourself if you try. Product safety is a good thing, I don't want to buy a car that will explode into flames if I back into a lamppost at the mall. But in my humble and cranky opinion, putting railings and warning signs around everything from volcanoes to the Grand Canyon goes much too far toward defeating natural selection. I think if someone is dumb enough to climb down into an active volcano, or jump off a cliff into a raging river, they probably shouldn't live long enough to pass those genes on.

When I was in Hawaii recently, I crossed a bridge about 40 feet above a crashing river with huge boulders. There was a forbidding sign warning you that people have been injured or killed jumping off this bridge into the water. I didn't need this sign, neither would have you. Yet there were three young men in their 20s jumping off into the water. They seemed to be surviving, but then I didn't hang around all that long.

We're not the only country to indulge in this habit of protecting morons. I saw the same thing in Italy not long ago. This sign was warning tourists against the inherent dangers of using your umbrella improperly. Personally, I never use an umbrella in any way that is not recommended in the directions.

If you're going to post warning signs, I prefer this style.