Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tragedy/Comedy












(Click this image to enlarge it and see the details the government doesn't want you to see.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Citizens For a More Nefarious Explanation.

Because those of you who read this blog are my closest friends in the world, I'll be honest with you: I didn't draw this cartoon. It was given to me in its present form.

A few weeks back, I had been working all day and most of the evening, my limbs were getting stiff and my eyes bleary. I decided to take a walk around the block for some exercise and a little fresh air. If one can call the air in Brooklyn fresh. Especially while you're smoking a cigar.

As I circled the block and turned back onto my street I saw a flickering light ahead of me. I thought that someone was driving toward me in a jalopy with a loose headlight, but as it approached, I noticed it rising off the ground in a way that cars have a habit of NOT doing. I stopped for a moment, knitted my brow, took a long drag on my cigar, and waited.

One gets used to the unexpected in Brooklyn, so I kept my cool. But when the light raced to within a few feet of me I became alarmed and froze in my tracks. I admit I was quite suddenly gripped with fear, but was just as suddenly calmed by a warmth that started in my mid-section and magically flowed to my extremities. Well, not all my extremities, just my feet. Apparently I had peed myself.

I glanced down at the growing puddle beneath my feet, then looked up again to find the light had darted back down the street to my own building. It danced momentarily in front of the windows of my second-story studio, then shot off into the sky. This was no ordinary Brooklyn jalopy, to be sure.

I hurried back home and up to my studio, where my computer screen still glowed. Upon my desk, in place of the stupid cartoon I had been working on about a chicken crossing the road, was this cartoon entitled, "Aria 51." It was love at first sight – so I dated it, mounted it, and wrapped it up for submission. (I never realized how similar cartooning and romance terms are.)

I still have no logical explanation for where this cartoon came from. I suppose it could have been anything from extraterrestrials to elves & fairies to the Virgin Mary to local crack-heads with a damned-refined sense of mischief to a cigar-induced hallucination.

I prefer to believe, however, that it was an experimental government vehicle designed based on technology found at an actual alien spacecraft crash site, and which will later be used to dupe Americans into believing another terrorist attack has occurred and thereby justify compromising the constitution even more and handing more money and power over to the government and its corporate cronies. The cartoon was left to make the whole idea seem too silly to be believed.

But I'm not falling for it.

18 comments:

Neil J Murphy said...

You know, the real difference between CRT and LCD computer monitors is that the CRT's are a LOT easier to clean after you've viewed a comic panel like this whilst drinking coffee.

Dan, you owe me a monitor. Great, great gag.

doug nicodemus said...

HAHAHAHAHA nuff said

Anonymous said...

lol @ tom cruise as alien

isee3dtoo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
isee3dtoo said...

I love this cartoon. I used to work out in one of the areas located in the Southern Nevada Desert. I worked at night and so my days were open for historical explorations and so I drove out to where they did open air testing of nuclear weapons and I came across an oasis with a constant flow of water. Really odd to see green growing in a such place. So I walked over to check it out and many years earlier some dropped a goldfish or two in the pond. This resulted in a very healthy and active school of goldfish.

So in the middle of the desert, on the edge of Frenchman's Flat is an oasis, surrounded by some of the most radioactive soil in the world, with a school of goldfish. Kind of cool in a bizarro world.

mmf1 said...

When I was working at Lawrence Livermore Lab around 1956-57, I remember people mentioning what was going on at Area 51.

Peaches said...

I think I would die if I hallicinated those mariachi's... some scary stuff.

TARDISGirl78 said...

thanks for posting this.

this is one of my fave bizarros

Melissa

Garrett Williams said...

I could see somebody making this opera, and I'd definitely love to see it.

Nik Daum said...

I'm always a fan of a good visual pun, especially ones that blend aliens and opera.

Mike Duffau said...

WE ARE NOT ALONE!

L. Erskine said...

This is so awesome!! Yes!

Joyceagain said...

include is an eduction in itself. Whoever would have thunk that knitting your brow could be such an elegant experience? You provide such a refreshingly subversive flourish to my day.

Unknown said...

That is SUCH an awesome panel. LOL!!!

Anonymous said...

How in the world did you come up with such comic brilliance? Oh yeah, you just replaced "area" with "aria." Ha. Way to step up to the plate.

edjusted said...

Pun: check
Government conspiracy: check
Aliens: check
Opera: check
Loved this one!

Leilani Schuck Weatherington said...

My dad cuts your comic out of the paper everyday and mails it to me because I don't get Bizarro paper. He did not get it -- he's 83 -- which rather surprised me because in other ways he is sharp a a tack, I had to explain to him. Very clever panel, indeed

Anonymous said...

Am I missing something clever or is this merely a play on words? Grab any local community college newspaper and you'll find plenty of cartoonists doing the same gags.