Dancing

I am a huge fan of Tom the Dancing Bug and no fan of political correctness, so it seems fitting that I share this week's brilliant TDB with you. Click the image for greater enlargingmentation.

To read the TDB blog, click the offensive word in this sentence: Sometimes I enjoy a cracker with my soup.

We Glorified Apes

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Blog.

I've heard that "Two and a Half Men" is America's most popular sit-com. As a person who would like very much to get into the TV business, this distresses me. I have only been able to watch a few minutes of a couple of episodes of this juggernaut before my brain ratcheted into survival mode and told my hand to change the channel. On each occasion, it took hours to shake off the willies.

I often find most extremely popular comedies to be utterly repugnant. This does not portend well for my chances in Hollywood. So I thought of this cartoon and I really like it. This would be a funnier premise for a sit-com, in my opinion.

My turtle penthouse gag is from a collaboration with my good friend and holder of one of the best pun names ever, Richard Cabeza. Since a tortoise's shell is his home, imagine what a high-rise apartment building of tortoises would look like. I don't even want to try to draw that.

Another popular TV show that makes me wonder if I am the same species as the millions of people who cannot live without it is "Dancing with the Stars." I wrote this gag weeks ago just because I hate the show, but when it ran in the papers last week, Bristles Palin's bid for top honors on that very show was in the news. A lucky coincidence. As many other people noted, how is this person a "star"? Becoming famous because you are the unwed pregnant teen of a megalomaniac hardly endows one with star quality.

But celebrity is often unearned, that is the nature of our human world. Humans are glorified apes who happened to evolve a very powerful brain. If any other species had been genetically gifted in this same way, they'd likely make just as big of fools of themselves as we do.

My apologies to any of my readers who are fans of the shows I've trashed here today. These are just my opinions, your results may vary wildly. As well they should. I'm just another random, glorified ape making a fool of myself on an hourly basis.

A parting gag: in reference to a blog a few days ago I accidentally referred to Ziggy as Zippy in a comment on Facebook. These characters with similar names could scarcely be at further ends of the cartoon scale but it gave me the idea to combine them. I present to you here, the yin/yang hero/villain, Zigpy the Pudhead, with apologies to Bill Griffith and Tom Wilson.

Cliche Discussion

(If you, like me, would like to see this picture bigger, click on the cartoon man's right eyelid.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Mysterious Explanations.

My favorite cartoons have always been single-panel magazine cartoons, the likes of which could once be found in National Lampoon and just about every other magazine in America, and which can now be found in The New Yorker and almost nowhere else. Within that genre is a canon of cartoon cliches that have been done millions of times in millions of ways: the psychiatrist's couch, the fish crawling out of the water and growing legs, the ascent of man, the guy stuck on a desert island, the cat and the mousehole, the guy crawling through a desert. This Sunday cartoon is particularly fun for me because I combined two of the oeuvre in one panel.

I love coming up with new versions of those standards, and especially doing satires of the standards themselves. Here is an example of one such satire from 1995, taken from my book, Life is Strange and So Are You – A Bizarro Sunday Treasury. The character in the water is mine, all the rest are borrowed from some of my favorite cartoonists (and one that I'm not a fan of at all but is highly recognizable.) See if you can figure out who is who. If you want to jump ahead, here is a diagram of which characters belong to which famous cartoonists. Most of you can guess which one I included not because I'm a fan but because of his recognizability alone.

Thanks for dropping by today, I've enjoyed pretending to talk to you.

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What Came Before

I wanted to share this interesting video by a brilliant animator, Nina Paley. This is part of a series of work she is doing to help reframe the debate about copyright issues. This short film has a lot to say about religion and other forms of human creativity.

Freaks

Bizarro is brought to you today by Nut-Gathering Robots.

I'm proud to present to you today one of my favorite cartoons in ages. The 21st Century Freakshow is brilliant, and I can say that without fear of immodesty because I didn't write it. (Damn!) I think I did a good job of drawing it (be sure to click it to see the larger version) but the original idea and sketch, pretty much in this form, came from my brilliant friend, colleague, and occasional collaborator, Wayno. I hate his guts. And I love him for donating this idea to Bizarro. He's a mensch.

The first state fair I ever attended was in Tulsa, Oklahoma around 1972 or so and back then they still had the old-school freak shows which consisted mostly of deformed people in cheap costumes. The "Abominable Snowman" was a guy with elephantitis of the feet, wearing a fake-fur caveman outfit and holding a big club. The "Alligator Girl" was a very old woman in a bikini whose entire body was covered in a scaly skin disorder of some kind. They sat all day in a plywood cubicle sort of thing inside a tent and you paid your money and went up and looked over the wall to see them. The look on their faces could be described as zombiesque and who could blame them? It's also worth noting that one of the attractions was invariably "The Fat Lady." At the time, a 300 lbs. woman was a rare sight, but they were no bigger than the average Walmart shopper of today.

Though still not to my taste, the freak shows of today are much more interesting, for my money. They are primarily people who do really weird things, like picking up a Buick by connecting a chain to the loop in their pierced tongue, or someone who has tattooed their entire body with all 44 presidents of The United States. I'm glad the old freak shows are gone, but I'm also glad I got to see one before they disappeared. I'm not sure why, just one of those odd experiences that one can appreciate in retrospect. At the time, however, I found it sad and haunting.

Speaking of freaks, next up is this gorilla cartoon which probably isn't all that funny to non-vegan folks. When you tell people you don't eat any animal products, the first question they often ask is "where do you get your protein?" The idea that humans need mounds of bloody animal protein to be strong and healthy is medically untrue; a myth perpetuated by the meat and dairy industries. There is plenty enough protein in plants to be healthy and strong, as any of the many huge, strong herbivores can attest: gorillas, rhinos, giraffes, cattle, etc. Children raised on vegan diets (after they finish their own mother's milk, of course) are many times less likely to develop most of your big diseases like cancers, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc. And they grow just as tall (but not as wide) as their burger-eating peers.

Don't forget to tell your NY area friends to come to The Steam Powered Hour on Sunday night where I'll be doing some music and comedy. Empty rooms are not good for comedy.

Earth Hat

Bizarro is brought to you today by Vegan Chicken Strips.

Just got back from my two comedy things in Santa Rosa, California, home of the Charles Schulz Museum and am happy to report they both went well and we had a great time. Thanks to those of you who came to the shows, it was fun meeting you. (Except for you, Hoyt. Never contact me again.)

The first cartoon shown here is a take on the cliche, "Let me through I'm a doctor" deal. In this case, the cartoony-looking guy has slipped on a banana peel and only a cartoonist will do. In my continuing habit of honoring Alfred Hitchcock, I appear as the cartoonist. My good friend and colleague, Wayno, came up with this idea. We had different ideas about this cartoon which we didn't discover until I published it and we got to chatting. He explains here why his original victim was a wealthy dandy, whereas I always think of the fallen slapstick victim as a blue-collar dude, like the moving guy who gets crushed by the piano.

This second cartoon is fairly odd even for me, which is what I like about it. I often notice bored couples in restaurants who seem not to say a word during their entire dining experience, even while waiting for the food. CHNW talks so much (even when she's alone) that I doubt that will ever happen to us. It always makes me sad to see this, but I could be assuming too much. Maybe they're as happy as anyone else, they just don't like to gab about it all the time.

Cartoon three is from the archives of Bizarro Headquarters. Keith Rust is an actual friend of mine. I didn't choose him for any particular reason, just thought he'd be a good subject for this gag. This is the sort of classically surreal gag that I really love and don't come up with nearly often enough.

More tomorrow, don't be late!

Self-Loathing Baboon Photo

Bizarro is brought to you today by Vacation Surprises.

Here are three jokes I really like; two new ones and one from 1998.

The basic idea for the baboon joke was sent to me by a reader. I really wish I'd thought of it. So perfect. My wife, CHNW, had heart surgery when she was 20 because one of her valves had been eaten away by a random infection. She needed to have the valve replaced and was offered either a mechanical one or a pig's valve. As regular readers know, she's an avid animal rights activist so you can imagine her response to the pig valve. She got a mechanical one, of course, and now ticks like a clock. When it's really quiet, you can actually hear it.

"Whack-A-Mirror" is based on the popular "Whack-A-Mole" arcade game. I love the self-loathing aspect. Not sure why, I guess because I hate myself sometimes. Don't we all? Please tell me you hate yourself sometimes, I don't want to be the only one. That would give me more reason to hate myself.

This final gag from the archives of Bizarro International Headquaters is a longtime fave of mine. I've seen a few takes on the "I can take that for you if you'd like to be in it" phenomenon, but this is among my favorites. In those days, I used to draw TONS of background on almost every cartoon. I do less of that now because I already work too many hours and the joke is the same either way. Even still, I draw more backgrounds than 99% of cartoonists, so I don't feel so bad. No mirror-whacking for me today.

God & Family

Bizarro is brought to you today by Important Information.

One day I was tweeting something and I thought it might be fun to open up a new Twitter account under the name "God" and tweet stuff like this. The name had already been taken, of course, probably about 18 seconds after Twitter was invented. I don't follow God on Twitter so I can't say what he/she is using it for. Other examples of what I might have tweeted as God:

Just cured a guy of leprosy, gave about 7 million other people cancer.

I could stop wars anytime I want but without cable, what would I watch?

Dave, if you're going to cheat on your wife, I'm going to introduce her to a hot trainer at the gym.

Hurricane Katrina wasn't about the iniquities of New Orleans. I was trying to teach you how to build a decent levee.

No prayers this weekend, please, I'm taking some time off.

My ancient cartoon for the day is from February of 1996. I've done a number of satires of Family Circus over the years, as have lots of other cartoonists, and I should mention that Bil Keane is a great sport about it. The first time I did it, he called me the next day (scaring me to death) and asked for the original art for his collection. I traded it to him for a Sunday panel of FC, one in which the dead grandpa ghost appears. Bil even used my name in his cartoon one time. If my archives were arranged in a way that I could find anything specific, I'd post it here. It was a picture of Billy and Jeffy talking to each other with their dad in the background listening. Billy says, "The Piraro's dad wears gold chains and an earring, all our dad wears is glasses and deodorant."

I have never worn a gold chain in my life, but I do have earrings. Still, it was fun to be a part of Family Circus.

Birds and Grief

Bizarro is brought to you today by Forgotten Fashion.

Today's offerings are a couple of cartoon ideas from friends. The first, the fat pigeon in the parking lot of some random fast food place, was from Rey, my good friend and life coach. Any time I have a question about something important in my life, I ask Rey what he thinks I should do. Then I do the opposite. Works every time, couldn't ask for a better life coach.

The second is from the infamous Richard Cabeza, who has the funniest name in the world. Adding the suit to the ostrich really makes this gag sing and dance. The dangling arms tickle me.

Our ancient cartoon from the dusty archival crypts of Bizarro International Headquarters is from January 1st, 1996. This was the first day that Bill Watterson's beloved "Calvin and Hobbes" did not appear in the papers. I made a joke about it and unwittingly raised the ire of many C&H faithful. I got a small wave of hate mail from people who thought it sacrilegious to make fun of the cartoon messiah, especially on a day when his fans were in such deep despair, grief and withdrawal. I waited 15 years to talk about it publicly to give them plenty of time to heal, but I'm sure many will need longer. I'll let you know how many letters I receive from this blog post.

AMAZING Animation

Here's something sent to me by Heather M. from Indianapolis. It's a truly amazing animation by an amazing artist and crew. Keep in mind this is not done with computers, all of it is stop-motion animation and actual paint. I can only imagine how long this took to produce. The concept and storyboards alone would take months.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Snakes & Gay Sailors

Bizarro is brought to you
today by The Dog Throw.

Instead of discussing my "snake eyes" cartoon today, let's talk about a comic book story that a friend of mine sent me recently. This is a small story within a larger volume of (presumably tough-guy) war comics called "The Losers," circa early seventies. You'll want to click on each image to see the details and read the copy.


As you can see by the cover, even though we were up to our eyeballs in the Vietman War, this comic is about WWII.













On the title page of our story, Toro is a lovely young man with remarkably feminine characteristics. He has a Florence Henderson haircut, ties his fatigues to expose his abs, wears a belt from the Diana Ross Collection and what's that over his shoulder reaching for his pearl necklace? Oh, it's a fairy.







On page two, we find that not only is his walk "peculiar" but he talks like a 17th century dandy. He's also always "neat and clean" and I think we all know what that means. We can tell by the looks on the other sailors' faces that this makes them angry.









In case the reader has missed the subtle clues, on this next page they actually identify him as a "fairy." One sailor, whose arm movement is more than a little melodramatic, is curious to find out more about him and who can blame him? He's been at sea for a long time. But before he can so much as buy him a glass of Chardonnay, the unarmed group is confronted by hostiles bearing weapons and even one of the tough guys turns into a sniveling little girl.

The "manly" sailors run away, but Toro runs toward the enemy. This doesn't surprise us because we already know he is crazy. What we didn't know was that he has the ability to change a flower into a funny knife.










On the final page, one Japanese soldier jumps off a cliff rather than fight the fairy. If you're not familiar with WWII history, the Japanese were well known for this kind of cowardice, which is why they surrendered so easily and never flew manned planes into U.S. Navy ships. Further demonstrating his insanity (an appreciation of flowers and jewelry) Toro jumps to his death, too.

In the final frame we find out that the name "Toro" comes from a handmade knife which he carries "strapped to his thigh, under his pants" (which made me a little hot.) It is further explained to us that although he loved beautiful things, he loved freedom even more, in spite of the fact that he was not free to be a fairy in the Navy. All of this killing, shirt-tying and beautiful hair had driven him crazy. Or perhaps he just loved his country so much that he wished to relieve them of the unpleasant task of dealing with a homosexual among their ranks. Whatever the reason, he clearly did "not wish to remain".

I'm not going to say that the artist was gay but I do find the flower over Toro's anus somewhat provocative. Regardless, this was a daring story line for a '70s war comic. I'd love to know if the editors were making a case for gays in the military or if they were truly clueless. Remember, in those days gay characters were not on TV anywhere, were only rarely depicted in films (and usually with derision and/or pathos) and outside of progressive neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York, were not discussed in polite society. As a kid growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I didn't even know what homosexuality was until I was midway through high school and some rednecks called me a fag, presumably because I was not dressed like a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. A story like this would have confused me completely.

What have we learned from this?
Gays can be just as ruthless as straights.
Gays have weapons hidden in their pants.
Be wary of people with flowers sticking out of their butts.

Androcles and the Text Message

Bizarro is brought to you today by Talking Laundry.

I'm sure a lot of readers don't remember the story of Androcles and the lion, or, if you went to an average American public school, never learned it, so here is a summary: A runaway slave removes a thorn from a lion's paw, then years later is not eaten by said lion because he remembered the favor.

Now, suddenly, the bartender joke becomes oh so poignant and humorous. Let us chuckle together, shall we?

The moral of the story is, if you want to be a super rich cartoonist, start drawing cartoons that anyone can immediately appreciate, even hillbillies. (Alas, will the parade of reasons I'm not rich never end?)

Here's one that any boob with a cell phone and a Facebook page can get. That includes just about ever boob in the country, including me. Let the riches begin!

Gaga for Gaga

(To view Lady Gaga's family in expanded glory, click on her belt buckle.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Shrinking Violets.

If you don't know who Lady Gaga is you won't understand this cartoon. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm not sure why I know who Lady Gaga is, I'm not a fan, but I do and I saw an opportunity for a fun cartoon so I took it. In my career, I'm sort of required to know about relatively unsatisfying pop trends in the same way that I'm required to understand and use Facebook and Twitter. It's not necessarily how I prefer to spend my time, but it's part of my job.

Here's a bit of groovy news about my good friend and valued colleague, Wayno: he has an online art exhibit going that you might want to peruse. This is not a show of his single-panel cartoons, the ideas for which he occasionally shares with me for Bizarro, but some of his musician portraits. Check it out and buy some prints for your own bare nekked walls. It feels good to support the Friends of Bizarro and it might help Wayno move from his current domicile to a permanent abode.

And here's one last bit of dynamic news: I've been declared an American treasure and recommended for a Kennedy Center Honor! OMG, can this really be happening? Please leave a comment, so mine won't be so lonely.

Crash Talk

Bizarro is brought to you today by Cops on Break.

Lately I've been depending on my good friend and talented colleague, Wayno, to help me with cartoons. My schedule has been a mess lately, as I've mentioned here previously, and without some writing help I'd be a basket case. CHNW and I swapped houses with some friends in Maui a few weeks back (which had been planned before I knew just how busy my schedule was going to be), then my daughter got married in Texas*, then I had a stand-up gig and a business meeting in Los Angeles. All told, I was home for just three days of the past four weeks. Fun and exciting, but grueling. By far, the worst thing about syndicated cartooning is having to work 365 days a year for years on end – over 25 for me so far.

Here are a couple of Wayno's gags from the past week. I like the Starbucks one because I don't like Starbuck's coffee – it tastes like burnt grill scrapings to me – but I drink it when there is nothing else available. I fully recognize the insanity of drinking something you hate just because it is all you can find, but the need for a strong, hot drink in the morning trumps my tastebud's preferences. I also suspect that any company as large as Starbuck's can't be doing the planet any favors, but I could be wrong about that. When it comes to corporations, I say, "guilty until proven innocent."

This next joke is an obvious pun which may have even been done before but I like the angle and the visual. "Crash," as an expression meaning "to sleep," probably came from the hardcore drug culture reference to coming down hard from a high. It amuses me that even mainstream America has embraced this word to mean sleeping in general. A middle-aged fundamentalist preacher and his wife visiting Branson, Missouri would think nothing of saying "we were so tired we went back to our hotel and crashed."

That's not to say that middle-aged fundamentalist preachers aren't using hardcore drugs, of course, but you get the idea.

*This photo was taken by a super talented photographer you can find here.

Wrong Size Sandwich

(click the images to see them LARGE)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Liza Minelli.

Here's another post with a two-fer, to make up some ground on the cartoons I didn't post while away. I really like cartoons like "Clown Mistakes," ones that are outside the usual formula of one-panel comics. More like a chart or diagram than a scene, my hero, B. Kliban was a genius at this kind of joke and the first person I ever saw employ this style.

Lots of readers really loved the sandwich joke, one even said it was the "best Bizarro ever." Normally I'd be happy about such a compliment, but I confess I didn't write this joke. It was given to me by my colleague, Wayno, who was kind enough to help me get ahead while trying to prepare for my lengthy trip away. Several of the jokes that printed last week and this were by Wayno. You can see them all on his blog. Many thanks, amigo!

Still catching up, must run.

Thieves, Cowards and Clones

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Amateur Crime Fighters.

After this cartoon appeared in the paper last week, I received two emails. One was from a polite person wondering if I had seen a Far Side cartoon from the late 20th century with a similar joke, and one from an impolite person accusing me outright of stealing the old Far Side cartoon and thinking no one would notice.

As I politely explained to both, widely-read cartoonists like me don't steal from even more widely-read cartoonists like Larson. Why? Because I have an I.Q. above that of a houseplant. You could never hope to get away with it, and what is more embarrassing that being caught stealing?

In truth, this kind of thing happens to professional cartoonists all of the time. There are hundreds or thousands of us searching our brains every single day for jokes, a twist on fairy tales or popular culture or recent movies, a way to turn a common phrase into an unexpected meaning. It is only natural that more than one person comes up with the same idea from time to time. The cartoon above is not all that unique, really. You take the common phrase, "let sleeping dogs lie" and think of a new way to illustrate it, this is pretty much what you get. The sort of things a dog might lie about are even likely to be similar. It's just the way the human mind works.

Professional cartoonists will pretty much all concur on this. We've all unintentionally published gags similar to our colleagues, and all had others publish ones very similar to ours. It just goes with the job, none of us waste much time pointing fingers because it's only a matter of time before we are the seemingly guilty party.

As a person who has judged caption contests before, I can tell you from experience that this happens to non-cartoonists, as well. If you publish a given picture and ask people to caption it, no matter how many entries you get, around three quarters will be in the same couple of veins of thought. None of us is as unique as we'd like to think.

My apologies for not having memorized more Far Side cartoons back in the last century. If I had, I would not have published this one. But as far as I can tell, no harm was done. I appreciate the two readers who wrote to call this to my attention, although I appreciate the polite reader far more. One of the downsides of the Internet is that its anonymity often fills the cowardly with false courage and incivility. (Hence the need to moderate comments.)

Facing It

Bizarro is brought to you today by camouflage.

One of my father's-in-law and I were driving through Florida recently, saying things with our mouths and we came across this idea of having your eye teeth dilated. So I made a comic about it. I'm blessed with funny in-laws all around, so it's fun to visit CHNW's family.

I'm happy with the character who is speaking in this cartoon because he actually looks like he's thinking about the way his food tastes. Achieving the proper facial expression is important to me and is something that comes from experience. It's a difficult and subtle art, moving an eyelid up or down, or a mouth a fraction one way or another can completely change the character's expression. You just have to do it enough to develop an intuition about it.

Somebody who has tons of great opinions about character design is John K, the dude who did Ren and Stimpy. I spend lots of time on his blog, just because it's fascinating. No modern animator that I know of has John's amazing level of expertise and talent. I often wish I'd worked for him when I was young instead of getting into newspaper comics. But I've had a good run and have no complaints.

Random Humor

If you're like me and you enjoy cartoons that look as though they were written by a 7th grader (but weren't), try this online comic I just discovered. I got some chuckles here but you have to search a bit.

This is my favorite joke so far...Annoying Disease.
Another good one...Here.
This one gave me a giggle, as well.

And definitely don't neglect to click "Mystery Button" a few times. It's my FAVE.

Bigfoot Follies

Bizarro is brought to you today by Science.

A lot of cartoonists do holiday-themed cartoons on major holidays as a matter of routine, I only do them now and then. If I can think of a good one far enough ahead to use it, I will, but I'm often oblivious to the date or what's coming up in the next month or two so it just doesn't work out. A few days before Xmas this year, for instance, I thought of a great cartoon about the Three Wise Men but, alas, it will have to wait until next year.

I like this one because it makes a ridiculous connection between two very unlikely bedfellows. The idea of Bigfoot throwing presents through people's windows makes me giggle. And giggling is good.

Today is the day after New Year's Day, sometimes referred to by laymen as January 2nd. My good friend and genius cartoonist, Reuben Bolling published a particularly brilliant cartoon today so I thought I'd post it here for your edification. Hope you like it, hope you have a prosperous '10.

Click the cartoon to biggernize it.

Cracker Leverage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Scary Parrots.


I likely won't be posting much over the next few days during the holidays, so I'm leaving you with what I think is a good one. I confess that this idea came to me while looking at a cartoon in New Yorker by the legendary and brilliant Sam Gross. It isn't a case of plagiarizing since I completely changed the gist of the gag, but it is a direct inspiration.

Even though I don't like or celebrate Xmas, the wife and I spend a few days with friends in the country. It's way fun and nobody plays Bing Crosby's Xmas album.

Hope all of you have a nice holiday, whatever that means to you. I'll post again next week.