Bizarro is brought to you today by Bag of Death.
The idea of snails attempting to jump pretzels was suggested by my good friend, Dick Cabeza. I loved the idea and am really happy with the way the illustration turned out. I like to draw abstracted, cartoony images, but for some reason this sort of idea is more appealing to me as a realistic drawing. It adds to the surreal quality.
Brooklyn warmed up yesterday and I took "the Beast" out for a spin for the first time in months. So rejuvinating. At times like these I wish I lived in one of those year-round-nice-weather climates that you hear about. The problem is, those places are understandably very expensive and often full of rich people who tend to skew conservative. Does anyone know of a terrific warm weather community of liberals and artsy types? Could be a big city or a small town, would prefer the U.S but it's not a deal breaker. Here in America, those kinds of communities tend to be in the north for some reason. Hawaii seems like a good option, but it's so isolated from the rest of the world and live events come on TV so early there.
It sounds like you are describing Santa Cruz, CA. There is no end to quirky liberal artsy folk here. This beach and university town has everything. http://www.ccscc.org/. People think they're actually happy here http://happysantacruz.com/, including the Pink Umbrella Man http://www.flickr.com/photos/djll/sets/1052171/
ReplyDeleteBerkeley, CA. Not super expensive, depending on the area. :)
ReplyDeletePortland, Oregon is a nice liberal place....best summer weather in the country, and the winters, while wet, aren't generally cold. You're almost always guaranteed to never have to shovel snow.
ReplyDeleteIf you are strictly limiting yourself to year round sunniness, then I'm afraid you're stuck with southern California, and all that comes with it.
Austin, Texas is your best bet. Most of the city is as liberal as it gets. It is still the capital of Texas so you have that to contend with, but overall the city is really liberal. Fairly low crime for a city of its size, property is reasonable and they're building up new developments all over the place. Two of the country's best music festivals happen here every year (South By Southwest and Austin City Limits), tons of weird bars and restaurants, and you're about a 20 minute motorcycle ride out into the hill country. Three hours from Dallas or Houston if you need your pro sports fix, less than an hour from floating on the Guadalupe or Comal River, less than an hour from Lake Travis for boating and whatnot. Currently 61 degrees and sunny. I should start writing travel brochures.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good idea for a comic, kind of sad because you now what is going to happen.
ReplyDeletePretzel, are you sure? It looks like an oddly coiled snake to me. I'm sure the cartoonist intended those salt granules to look like eyes. I will avert my own eyes before the hurtling gastropod launches over the gap. I don't want to see the pretzel/snake strike from its camouflaged hiding place.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, nicely done.
Come to Los Angeles, Dan! We had a 75 degree Christmas. As long as you steer clear of the Bev Hills/Palisades/etc etc areas, you're bound to find artsy liberals all around!
ReplyDeleteSanta Monica / Venice / Marina Del Rey, CA! 340days of motorcycle weather, nary a Republican and rent is not worse than in NYC!
ReplyDeleteBTW... you have great taste in motorcycles!
Jan
San Diego?
ReplyDeleteKey West doesn't get much warmer or much more liberal and artsy.
ReplyDeleteDude, Victoria BC. Very little, if any, snow and nicely isolated from the 'continent'.
ReplyDeleteAustin (TX) and Athens (GA) might fit the bill for you. Many of your typical college towns in the Southern states are "Blue" oases in a sea of "Red." Might not be ideal for state-level politics, but you can't have everything.
ReplyDeleteLA, Dan!!! fulla rich liberals and lotsa gays! we love the left out here!
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco!
ReplyDeleteok so this is one of those that i need explained to me...maybe i need to come up with a new scale the HUH scale...
ReplyDeleteI would recommend San Francisco. One of the few forgivable places in California (so nice weather!), however, it's awfully expensive and you'll have ugly taxes to pay since they have a really big deficit. The city is ridiculously beautiful though.
ReplyDeleteOr you could also come to Seattle! Most literate major city in the US and very very progressive. I'm in my freshman year of college and as mandatory new student reading we got a book authored by Obama.Over here it is okay to be inconsiderate of Republicans it seems. Temperature rarely dips below 0 Celsius however it just stays persistently damp for autumn-winter.
Duh, come to Berkeley, dude!
ReplyDeleteBeasts welcome. Some good vegan restaurants, too.
~Karen
What about Austin, Texas?
ReplyDeleteHow about Austin, TX? I've only spent a little time there, but it seems like just what you've described. Their motto is "Keep Austin Weird" so you'd fit right in.
ReplyDeleteSebatopol, CA - artsy, liberal, good climate.
ReplyDeleteCome down to Carmel (CA not ID)... it is a bit expensive but it might be in line with a non-rent controlled NY Apt). Or slum it with us in Pacific Grove) - cheaper and without those pesky tourist).
ReplyDeleteUm, California??? Year-round great weather, and open-minded people. Ski and surf in the same day...What's not to like? We're not all rich here. In fact, the housing prices are so high, we all feel poor.
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? South Florida! It's still expensive but not by New York standards, and there's a huge creative community here. Artists have recorded their biggest hits in Miami, there's an art district where I've seen the most influential art, and the people are very open minded; hardly homogenized, the cultures and backgrounds literally span every place on the globe, there's a large gay community, and about 4 different languages commonly spoken. Our state has only voted conservative because of the ding-ling-linga-lings in northern Florida, but we did ya good in the '08 election! The people of South Florida usually lean more liberal than the rest of the state, and besides, it's always freakin summer here! Even in the last wave of cold weather, we were 1 of 3 of the warmest places in the country. I could go to the beach right now if I want in this 80 degree weather! Look, just do what every person in New York does and will continue to do: move to Florida!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what you qualify as "warm," but Santa Cruz, CA is full of liberals and artsy types. Winter lows are in the 40s usually with some rain, and summers are lovely. UC Santa Cruz, home of the Banana Slugs, helps keep the funky vibe going.
ReplyDeleteThe live TV coming on early is a plus, not a minus, my friend.
ReplyDeleteTaos, NM has a good arty & blue reputation.
ReplyDeleteLove the post and the cartoon, Dan. I've always had a soft spot for snails and their gastropod brethren. In fact, when I was but a wee pup, I entered the local Science Fair with the promising theme "How Fast IS A Snail?" First place, Dan. First place!
ReplyDeleteGainesville, FL (Or many other southern university towns), or Key West.
ReplyDeleteWorld's best place to live for the climate is the central CA coast. Rarely colder than 50 with fresh clean air from the sea and ready access to mountains, desert, cities. It is also liberal politically. However, the wealthy lefties have made it expensive as well. Can't have it all I guess. PS--I like your fine art.
ReplyDeleteKey West
ReplyDeleteWe laughed twice at the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteWe came to Asheville, NC to escape the long cold winters (and the hot muggy summers, too), and it's happily one of the little holes on the Bible Belt.
Portland, Oregon variety, or Vancouver BC. You'll laugh at what is referred to as "winter" around here. Plenty of great vegan restaurants. Farmer's markets year round.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of warm weather towns and cities full of liberal, artsy people throughout the Southwest. In California, there's Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Claremont, to name a few. In Arizona there's Flagstaff, and in Texas the quirkiest city of all, Austin.
ReplyDelete=v= Personally I think Brooklyn is worth the bad weather. I just wish there was reasonable employment for me (one of those dot-com techie types) except that we dot-com techie types tend to wreck places. We priced most of the creative people out of San Francisco, for example.
ReplyDeleteYou can ask Nina for details on the desirability of Santa Cruz and San Francisco. The veg food is great and the open-mindedness is nice, but there's lots of cultural silliness, which I don't mind at all, except there's also an overall lack of depth.
You might check out Laguna Beach, CA or Santa Barbara, CA. An up and coming place might be Ventura, CA, more working class, but many LA art refugees are moving there.
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot to mention Ojai, CA, home of Sergio Aragones...
ReplyDeleteMy (area or region) is superior to your (area or region).
ReplyDeleteRoadtripped to most of these places. Gotta go with San Francisco. Kept driving back up to visit when I lived in L.A. Easy to score yummy vegan food in both of these cities. I'm still looking for a great small town myself. Like Deadwood, SD but w/o the casinos and located somewhere warm.
ReplyDeleteLove the Evel Knieval snails.
LA has great weather, and lots of everything. Californians overall vote more conservative than they pretend they are, but there's lots of personality variety here. Berkeley might be more your comfort zone, but it does get cold up there... But I think LA might bug you too much... all the driving... Well, I'm an artsy liberal, and so are many of my friends, and we live here in LA.
ReplyDeleteArtist fight! Artist fight!
ReplyDeletehttp://store.glennz.com/stuntsnail.html
@ Plan 9...
ReplyDeleteThe designs on that site are brilliant, thanks for the link! Yes, this is one of those frequent occurrences in the cartoon world when two of us come up with the same idea individually. I like my pretzel angle better, but his graphic portrayal is genius.