Total Pigs

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by the Total Car.

A few years before I adopted a vegan diet, I stopped eating pigs because I read about how intelligent they are and how badly they suffer on factory farms, not to mention slaughterhouses. I later came to understand how all those critters I was eating were intelligent in their way and suffering at the whims of my taste buds, so I became vegan.

It's funny to me now that I used "intelligence" as a guide to whether or not a being deserved to be tortured and murdered. If that were true across the board, I can think of any number of people I've known who could be caged and butchered and sold for 99¢ a handful. "I'll have a Ricky sandwich and an order of Debbie nuggets, please."

Most people don't think that way of other species, I know. I didn't until I did, so I'm not judgmental about those who eat meat. I feel strongly about it, but I don't think that people who eat animal products are "bad" per se.

Pigs are really cool animals. I've gotten to know a bunch of them at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and they're really fascinating. They're smarter than dogs, big, ugly, affectionate and full of personality. You do have to be careful to follow a few simple rules when you're visiting them, however. I saw one frantically rooting and snorting at a woman's butt one time, almost knocking her down, and sending her screaming from the pig yard. Turns out she had an apple core in her back pocket. No one got hurt, but she almost lost the seat of her pants.

Bunny Blues

Bizarro is brought to you today by Rodents To Be Pitied.

When I was young, I never bought the idea that people in animal costumes were actually the character they were pretending to be. I sensed they were regular people in giant costumes and was appropriately frightened of them. My mother would take us to get our picture taken with the Easter Bunny and I'd cry.

This cartoon isn't about the Easter Bunny, but it goes to a pretty strange place with no apparent explanation. I like this kind of humor, that which portrays an extraordinary moment in time not easily explained. Fans of this sort of thing don't need an explanation, it's just funny that this poor sap is in a bunny costume and talking about his hard luck and country western songs. Others with more literal minds, may think the drunken bum is imagining it. That's fine, too.

The real answer is that the upside-down bird under the bench is the world's foremost avifaunal performance artist and he has orchestrated the scene for the benefit of passers by.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Secret To Life.

It was 1981 and I had just called the bass player in our band to find out where he lived. I needed to deliver something to him like a piece of electronics, or a packet of illegal substance, or a book I'd borrowed, or a blimp mooring tower, I can't remember now. He lived in a huge old house that had been turned into a multi-family dwelling. He told me the address, and said to go up to the porch, through the second door from the right, up the stairs, and to knock on the second door on the left.

Being a bass player, he lived in a fairly rough neighborhood and though I was a little on guard, I did not want to show any apprehension. So following his instructions carefully I found the house, walked up to the porch with confidence, burst through the second door from the right and walked in briskly expecting to find stairs up which I would clamor.

What I found instead was a large Mexican family of around a dozen people, watching television in their living room. I froze in my tracks, they snapped their heads toward me and froze, and we all looked at each other with equal surprise for several seconds, searing an image in my brain that has not faded a single pixel even to this day. Portrait of the Ortega Family at Home, 1981, oil on canvas, 40'x60'.

Lurching back to consciousness, I backed out, mumbling something like "sorry, wrong door, sorry, sorry," and scrambled back off the porch.

Looking back at the house, I was a bit afraid to choose another door, there were four along the length of the porch. Who knows what might be behind door number two – a tiger? an illegal dogfighting ring? Richard Simmons slapping a bellhop around?

I crept back up to the house, knocked on another door and listened, heard nothing and gingerly tried the knob. It opened, and there was a stairway inside. I found my friend's apartment and told him what had happened with the family downstairs. He smirked and said, "you're lucky they didn't kill you. I think they're drug dealers."

Thus ended my exceptionally brief career as an unwitting DEA agent. I'm glad I wasn't killed in the line of a duty I had no idea I was performing. I don't think you get a pension for that.

Courage Under Fire

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Second Amendment.

This gag was written by my friend and colleague, Wayno, a fine cartoonist in his own right. He enjoys seeing his ideas in Bizarro from time to time and I enjoy drawing them up. For more of Wayno's work, visit this here place.

Or go to Facebook and look for Wayno Illustration.

Speaking of Facebook, to any of you who have sent me something through that site, I apologize for how long it takes me to respond. I only check the site about once a month and click through requests and stuff as quickly as possible. I often don't have time to answer the comments and notes and things, I hope you will forgive me. Here at Bizarro International Headquarters there is too much for one person to do in a day and I can't afford an assistant. Thanks for understanding, you're a peach.

Exciting Update!

This post is brought to you by Sheer Ego.

Yes, I am aware it is crass to brag. But when things like this happen, I get all giggly and have to share my elation. Check out Merl Reagle's Crossword puzzle from a few days ago. Now check out the yellow highlighted parts. (Click the puzzle to make it larger)

WHAT?!?!?!

How did a lowly cartoonist without a single magazine cover to his name or even an official fan club make his way into a crossword puzzle? I don't know either, but however he did it, he is thrilled.

You see, cartoonists labor in obscurity for the most part. I've never been (and likely never will be) as famous as Gary Larson, or Garry Trudeau, or Jim Davis, or Charles Schulz. I do what I do and I make a living and I'm happy with that, but every now and then a little rainbow from the pantheon like this crossword puzzle drops into my lap and it's a real kick. It doesn't mean I have "arrived," but it does mean that at least Merl Reagle thinks my name is well known enough to warrant making his readers call up Wikipedia on their computers.

A couple of years ago I was a question on Jeopardy! and it was the highlight of my life. Some people strive for Pulitzers, Oscars, or Nobel Prizes. All I want is to be a puzzle clue every couple of years. That's not so much, is it?

NOTE: Thanks to all the readers who emailed me about this and to Dimension Skipper, who added a link to the above image to his/her comment on this blog. As you can see in his comment (on the previous cartoon) his verification word for posting his comment was "fredness." My dad's name is Fred, which means that I, myself, am the result of an act of fredness.

Hypnolarious

Bizarro has been brought to you today by When Your Phone Rings You Will Think You A Chicken.

This cartoon is not about hypnotism per se, but I'd like to say a few words about the subject.

I've been to various therapists from time to time over the years – not constantly but on an as-needed basis – but I've never had one that wanted to hypnotize me. And I've been to one of those hypnotism nightclub acts before, but have never been onstage. So speaking as a person who has no experience with hypnotism whatsoever and hasn't even read anything about it, let me expound on its applications and limitations.

I think hypnotism is probably useful in a CSI:Miami situation, like when the person who witnesses a crime without realizing it and is trying desperately to remember the license number of the car that drove away with the ambassador's kidnapped granddaughter in the trunk. And it's probably also useful for quitting smoking and overcoming anxiety, stuff like that, and for tricking someone into becoming your crime zombie and robbing banks for you then forgetting they ever did it.

But I strongly suspect that the humorous nightclub routines are all about people who want to perform but need an excuse for being a ham. I don't believe for a minute that the insurance salesman's wife really thinks she's at the beach on a hot day when she peels off her dress and parades around in her bra and undies. I'd say it's a lot more likely that she's bored out of her mind raising those three brats of his and doing his laundry and regrets not having become and exotic dancer at a truck stop honkytonk.

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

An armored gorilla punches some dude in the face on John Byrne's cover to Doomsday + 1 #6 (1976).

(Standard disclaimer about armored gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.