Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Summer.
Not much to say about this cartoon. It's a pun with a fun image. I enjoyed drawing the creepy treats on the side. I came up with a couple more for the strip version, seen below. Click it to big it.
A reader emailed a story to me about an ice cream truck driver abducting a child, the mom saw it happen, jumped in her car and gave chase. A few other moms joined, they caught the guy, rescued the kid and the driver was arrested. Don't know how true, but it's a good story.
You gotta love vigilante moms, as long as they're after serious stuff like pedophiles and drunk drivers, and not just smokers or people with tattoos. I've seen moms push their kid's stroller out into the street to keep their precious offspring away from the nasty man with the cigar (me). Because every good parent knows, a single breath of residual tobacco smoke wafting in the breeze is far more dangerous than traffic.
In summary, I love ice cream trucks but cannot tolerate the music they produce, I love cigars but am annoyed by the bad rap they get because of anti-cigarette propaganda, I love kids but think their parents can be obnoxious.
I think we're done here.
14 comments:
the hidden signs gave me some trouble for a while!
I think it depends--I'm pretty allergic to smoke so even a bit of exposure can send me into a cat-with-a-hairball-fit. Of course, my throat likes to play mind games so absolutely nothing can do it, too. That being said, I'm not the type to remove smoking from all cartoons ever. I'll never get that. Half the fun of Popeye was the pipe. The other half was the violence.
Love the truck, by the way. Especially the eyeball/snake pop. Teachers should give those out first day of school. That'll keep them quiet for the whole year.
There are cigars and then there are cigars, just as there are pipes and then there are pipes. Back in the dear dead days when we could smoke at work, a whole row of us kept fans blowing OUT our office doors, into the hall, all the time because of one nearby guy who smoked a pipe -- not, as you might expect, a nice warm aroma of Cherry Rum or some such, but rather a blend of what smelled like burning ground-up dirty diapers. Heaven knows what it tasted like, but the smell was enough to make a buzzard throw up.
We have an ice cream truck in our neighborhood that endlessly plays the horrible '70s kitsch piano tune, "Music Box Dancer." Amazingly, nobody's yet taken it out with a roadside, um, "device."
I am assuming that putting a link to MJ for the "pedophiles" could get you in legal hot water?
The story about the kidnapping is true. Here's a link to a Denver Post story:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12301995
PS: Tobacco propaganda? You don't think it causes cancer? Or causes women to give birth to underweight babies? Or causes people to develop gum disease, that leads to tooth loss, that leads to dentures? Or causes wrinkles, (breaks down collagen around the mouth and face) that leads to puckered-faced, prematurely aged geezers? And smokers have bad breath and body odor. Not to mention that tobacco smoke is gross for the rest of us. Nope. Can't see why they try to get people to quit.
My first thought was the ice cream truck with the bear in it (in "Borat") with the children running away from it, screaming. Funniest. scene. ever. (that scene and your "I Scream" strip appeal to my well-developed sense of schadenfreude.
Love it. You probably could've included the Republican party elephant on the side of the truck. Talk about cash for clunkers! It might have offended some of your readers, but then again, those folks just might be too busy looking for Kenyan birth certificates to notice.
I just read an article about an ice cream vendor in Green Bay who was arrested last week for selling cocaine. And another story about a Mister Softee vendor who was arrested yesterday for selling cocaine on Long Island. Maybe your cartoon's ice cream monster graphics aren't that far fetched.
Personally, I like the tobacco smell of a good cigar; at least until someone lights it up:)
Yesss, the cigar, the ultimate sign of macho, good breeding and taste... just ask Mush Mumbaugh and, Ahnold Schvarzanigger and, oh wait...
i don't have to luv anybody, particularly self-righteous breeder sows, but i sure as hell don't want to be around a tool who feels like ruining everybody's fresh air with a reeking substitute for a tiny lil' pink dick
as freud said, "sometimes a penis is just a penis--unless its not."
I find it startling that you constantly preach ever so righteously about veganism, putting yourself on a pedestal for refusing to eat animals and the foods they produce, yet you judge someone for wanting to avoid the exhaust of someone smoking a tobacco product.
I, too, am a vegan. I, however, also do my best to live a smoke-free life. Not because of some "propaganda", but because I don't appreciate the way it makes me feel when it enters my lungs.
Please understand that I love your comics and your blog, but found this mention of "propaganda" inconsistent with someone making an unpopular choice like veganism.
So here's more info on my attitudes toward smoking:
I don't object to anyone not wanting to smell or breathe smoke. Totally each person's choice, I have nothing to say about it. And I know that inhaling smoke of any kind is bad for your lungs and increases a person's chances of getting certain diseases. No argument.
My use of the word "propaganda" was because people believe erroneously that any little whiff of smoke is a health hazard. It is not, any more than a sip of whiskey would destroy your liver.
Three facts worth noting:
1. Most people who smoke cigarettes to not get cancer.
2. Diet-related illnesses kill more Americans each year than lung cancer and emphysema.
3. Cigars, unlike cigarettes, are not inhaled and are not infused with chemicals. They are basically nothing more than rolled leaves and the smoke does not get into your lungs. Extremely small health risk to the smoker or anyone else around. The idea that second-hand smoke is dangerous enough to worry about is based on a single, small study that has since been discredited. If it were true, all of us who grew up with smokers in the house would be dropping like flies whether we smoked or not.
I don't object to people objecting to smoking, that's a reasonable personal choice. What I object to is people being unreasonable about it when outdoors in the open air. I don't smoke in crowds unless I'm in a smoking section. But passing a smoker on the street is a momentary inconvenience,not dangerous to your health and no more or less annoying than their cologne, which I happen to detest.
Last, but not least, I do not put myself "on a pedestal" for being vegan. It just happens to be something I believe in for ethical reasons. Smoking cigars does not subsidize cruelty to animals, so I have no qualms about it.
Hope this helps.
The cartoon is funny as hell. If something like that was actually on the streets, the "vigilante moms" would have a panic attack. Someone should do it...just to get their panties bunched up (ugly visual...sorry).
Personally, I find people who would "save me from myself" more disturbing than the alleged offense. No doubt they have their own dark secrets to hide.
I smoke a cigar every now and then, but far from daily. Even being an occasional smoker, I've gotten my share of shit for it. The most obnoxious was being told that even though I was surrounded by cigarette smokers, I should put out my cigar at the blackjack table in Vegas at the Mirage, because the smoke was somehow worse.
Regarding some people's attitudes on smoking, I'm reminded of the time I was standing on the sidewalk 20-some years ago smoking and minding my own business when a woman driving a '69 Cadillac pulled to the curb and castigated me for the damage I was doing to my health. Just to put the ironic cherry on top, as she drove off with her 'A.S.H.' bumper sticker on the back of her car, a large plume of acrid blue smoke emerged from her Caddy's tailpipe.
I can appreciate those who are concerned about the effects of tobacco smoke on one's health, but I'd think they were a little more serious about the issue if I didn't see them driving around in cars as they spread the word. If you have any doubt concerning the lethality of the exhaust from an internal combustion engine, just put your mouth on the tailpipe and inhale for as long as it takes to smoke the average cigar.
A lot of this anti-smoking stuff is misguided, and comes from people who were formerly heavy smokers themselves and can't stand to see someone enjoy themselves doing something they can't. Here's a hint: Go after the real polluters first -- that would be petroleum-powered cars and trucks -- and take on the tobacco smokers later.
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