Sunday, March 8, 2009

Impaired Humor











(You can click the picture and it will become un-small.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by
Shark Week.

From where I sit inside my own head, there is almost no article of clothing more unappealing than the track suit. What is even stranger than the thought of someone thinking they looked good in this kind of color-coordinated baggywear, is the connection, or lack thereof, of the primary groups who wear them.

The fashion track suit is mostly the domain of three distinct groups: the tacky suburban house frau, goombas like "Paulie" from The Sopranos, and hip-hop-happy urban blacks. How did these three groups become members of the same fashion trend?

I don't know when urban blacks began wearing these eyesores en masse, but my guess is that some iconic fadster like Sean "P. Duddy" Combs (Piff Daddy? Pap Doodly? P. Poopy?) decided he could manufacture a lot of them very cheaply in Asia, slapped his name on it, then wore one in public. Once the hoards saw him in one, they had to have one, too. A simple sheep/shepherd equation. Pup Dabby gets rich(er); millions look like walking laundry bags.

The habit among suburban soccer moms grew from a more utilitarian seed, I suspect . They're chasing their crotch fruit around 24/7 and have given up caring about the way they look. Their bodies aren't what they once were and these baggy rainbow parachutes hide that (sort of.) They need something that won't wrinkle when they pass out on the couch from gin and pain pills at the end of the day. It also doesn't hurt that these velour body bags have a built-in contraceptive effect–their husband has to be in a very bad way before he'll come on to woman dressed like Puff Dippy.

Jersey gangster types are perhaps the most puzzling. These are middle-aged, white, often Italian men who are not slaves to hip hop fashion by any means, and not worried about contraception or the shape of their bodies. They are, however, overweight and lacking even a shred of aesthetic aptitude. Perhaps that is where the secret lies. A man in this position is looking for clothing that will both adjust to his constantly morphing waistline and give him plenty of freedom of movement in his daily activities: threatening, extorting, wacking, eating sausage.

Regardless of the reasons, it is odd that one could accurately structure a Jeopardy! question thusly:
"Soccer moms, gangstas, and hit men."
"What are three groups that dress alike?"


In other news, I made another mistake that I would like to share with you. In the title panel for this cartoon, I looked up the sign language alphabet to spell out "Bizarro." Evidently, I looked at the wrong sign for "R" and used the one for "S" instead, a mistake brought to my attention by several readers, so my original title panel spelled out "Bizasso". The original and the corrected version (for future use) are below.

11 comments:

Penny Mitchell said...

I vote for "P. Poopy".

derekamalo said...

Dan,


i gotta start paying more attention. When looking at your website i noticed on many of your art drawings you tend to draw strange ghouls and ugly people. i actually thought this guy you drew ...just was another ugly dude with a lot of hands. i had no clue it was doing any sign language.

Anonymous said...

Freud would say that there are no mistakes. It looks as though you are having a self esteem issue when you call yourself Biz-ass-o. Maybe you should stop reading this tripe section and enjoy the peace (nope), economy (nope), weather (nope), .... ah hell, the nice buzz from the scotch (YES).

PS: You might not want to go to Florida after today's blog. I believe the track suit is a state issued wardrobe.

Karl said...

The only people I find who look acceptable in track suits are actual athletes. For some reason they look alright in them because of their toned bodies and firm muscles. I would recommend that anyone else (including my own protruding belly fat physique) should only wear them indoors, preferably in subdued lighting.

Anonymous said...

i'm pretty sure Run DMC started wearing ADIDAS track suits before anyone else.

doug nicodemus said...

that is funny hahahaha

Anonymous said...

I see you've banned the Norwegian "grilldress" – "barbecue suit". Many married couples walk around in ghastly matching tracksuits. Good call!

Anonymous said...

Originally from california, i moved to england almost two years ago. They have these groups of people i can best describe as white-wannabe-gangstas who are called chavs. Look them up when you need a laugh. They wear tracksuits no matter what the british weather happens to be.

Unknown said...

You crack me up! Your writing is as funny as your comic!

Unknown said...

Love the side panel. More than the comic, actually.

Anonymous said...

anonymous, your comment about the british track suit wearing thugs reminds me of that character in Hot Fuzz, with the purple track suit, who's caught stealing in the supermarket.