Thursday, March 26, 2009

Marsupial Interpretations


Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Steroids.

I've never reached into a kangaroo's pouch and I don't recommend it to others. In doing so without invitation, you run the risk of offending the pouch's owner, thus inclining her to use her formidable legs or tail to remove your appendage from her hidey hole. I feel certain that the youngster in this amusing sketch escaped with nothing short of a dislocated shoulder.

Still, who can blame the child? She is an average, curious lass of the 21st century First World and as such, has not seen a slot such as this in anything other than a hand puppet. She only wanted to make the funny puppet dance.

But perhaps we are missing the point. It could be that the young lady is, in fact, manipulating a giant puppet and using her ventriloquistic acumen to make it appear to ask her to stop. This is a sophisticated child indeed, with an impressively eccentric sense of humor.

Or perhaps the child only perceived this scene while visiting a petting zoo after sampling wild mushrooms in the park. Who among us can say we have not thrust our arm into places it did not belong under similar circumstances?

26 comments:

Jeremy said...

In Crocodile Dundee, Mick used a murdered kangaroo as a puppet to scare off the hunters that were mercilessly killing a herd of kangaroos for no reason. He had the dead 'roo pick up a rifle and shoot at them.

I doubt he used the pouch though, I think he just stood behind the 'roo and manipulated its arms.

Chriss Pagani said...

I understand it's actually filled with icky sticky goo.

Anonymous said...

I'd think it is pretty much just full of pocket fluff...

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHA
I JUST CLICKED ON TODAY'S BIZARRO LINK
LMAO @ MALO

Anonymous said...

Doesn't make much sense. A hand down the pants gag would've been more appropriate to this drawing. Which, of course, you cannot do in a syndicated strip. So you probably shouldn't have bothered.

Anonymous said...

lmfao

http://www.seattlepi.com/fun/bizarro.asp

doug nicodemus said...

anon again pointless criticism from a pointless source. if you don't like dan's stuff why come here?

it wasn't one of my favs however..

Tegin said...

now I want to be a ventriloquist....

LaLaOrange said...

This comic is so awesome. My officemates appreciated it too. Thanks Dan!

Karl said...

I like it, don't get me wrong. Kangaroo's are funny and it is well drawn, no mistaking it for a koala bear or komodo dragon.

At first glance, I'm just not sure it's easy to understand the reason the little girl is reaching into the pocket. For the feebler minded folks out there (okay, I'm representing your interests), it might have helped to add the word "hand" in front of puppet.

Picky picky picky....

Jeremy said...

Katherine,

While Dan does an excellent job of illustrating Bizarro, the idea came from Derek. Today's published cartoon too about the poor guy whose mother was a sword swallower. I do like Derek's cartoons, he can show some real strokes of genius.

Anonymous said...

Not one of my favorites, but I did enjoy it. That picture of Paris made up for it though. Dan must scour the internet for hours to come up with all the good pictures.

spleenal said...

This is great (the blog)
Do male kangaroos get a pouch too?

Karl said...

Spleenal,

I was curious about that too. So I checked it out on Wikipedia. Just the females (like all marsupials) have pouches for their Joey's.

Isn't BizarroBlog a great learning place?

Anonymous said...

Blogger fran said...

Written AND visually conceived by Derek, Piraro. Don't discount the importance of the composition. You merely redrew the Derek's comic in your own style.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Blogger fran said...

But it is clever, Derek.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Blogger fran said...

You're going to have to translate your post to English for me, Derek. But, I'll say it again, seeing as your handle on the language is shaky at best - what Piraro is doing is REDRAWING your comics, not "getting ideas" from them. My issue is and always has been that he is understating your input - what he is doing requires zero creativity or humor, merely drawing skills. You deserve more credit for these comics than he, really.

BTW, do you know what "spam" is? Ask one of your "helpers" in the computer lab.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Anonymous said...

I must say this blog is becoming more of a battle of wits (of the nit variety) than of the humor kind.

Jezzka said...

d, have you been eating those wild mushrooms in the park again...fyi, the one's with the bright colored dots will give you the bad poo-poos. i repeat do not eat. heehee.

Unknown said...

I think the kid is a perv.

Anonymous said...

It all depends where your head is

Anonymous said...

i like it. to me this one seems more about the awkward situation between the kangaroo and the kid. the kangaroo is like are you retarded?

ive seen a baby kangaroo in its moms pouch, it was so cute and tiny.

Piraro said...

@Fran...regarding the use of other people's cartoons in Bizarro:

Most cartoonists use ideas from other writers regularly, some even exclusively. Almost none ever admit it or give any credit. I've been publishing a cartoon a day since January 1985 and only recently started using more than four or five ideas a year not written by me.

When someone sends me an idea, sometimes it's great as is and I use it with very little or no changes. More often, it is a seed of an idea that needs some work. Lately, I've been getting a lot of good ideas from readers (I don't use professional writers, as many others do) and I use them because after a quarter of a century, I enjoy the break and I like giving others the opportunity to publish their work so widely. And when they submit regularly, I give them a co-credit.

IN the old days, the golden days of The New Yorker, almost none of the cartoons were written by the artists (including many timeless classics that are still revered today) and none of those writers got any credit. Just a small paycheck.

My point is, this isn't a new idea, nor is it unfair in my opinion. I don't "need" the help, but I enjoy it. So if someone – like Malo – wants to submit cartoons for the pure joy of seeing them in print, I'm game. For the record, he submits dozens of ideas every week and three or four per month get accepted. Every now and then he has a stroke of genius, I agree. That's why I like to use his cartoons. He's happy with our arrangement, so am I.

Anonymous said...

hey we can send bizarro an idea and he might draw it? where do we send it to? :D

Piraro said...

you can send it to my email address, which can be found under a link on the homepage of bizarro.com.

derekamalo said...

hahah just for the record anonymous an idea or ideas....id say youd have to send about 200 to get one in ..dans picky ..:)

and ah fran once again me coming from a family of successful people its a kick to see my name go all around the world...it proves i can do it also ..thats my opinion

so when ocd, bipolar manic boy malo is not bitchig about syndicates passing on me and being better than everyone in paper and getting paid $200 lifetime in a carer that cost me $40,000 plus its great to see myself in there

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the flashback, "Fran." I stand by all those comments, but I'm not sure I see the point you are trying to make in burning all those calories and going back researching my comments.

And I'm not sure why Piraro is answering my comments from 6 months ago. I'm pretty sure he gave his response back then.

Anonymous said...

By the way, Piraro... You avoided my the point my troll restated for me - you are not merely getting IDEAS from Derek. You are getting fully rendered cartoons with the writing and composition worked out and you are simply REDRAWING them in your own style. I have never faulted you for getting mere IDEAS from others - but apparently you feel that is an easier stance to defend.