Tsar Stars

Bizarro is brought to you today by Tsars.

I've been away from the blog for a few days, I hope you missed me. I missed you in a way that can only be described as "sort of, in an abstract way."

The reason I've been missing this week was because my good friend and colleague, Wayno, was visiting from his hometown of Chugfuggit, Tennessee. We worked together, ate together, drank together, showered together (but in different bathrooms) for three days and right about now he's back in his cabin in the hills and his wife is trying to get the cigar smell out of his clothing. Hahaha. Good luck, Tiffany Chrystal.

I think most people these days spell the word, "czar," but "tsar" is perfectly acceptable and maybe older. I don't really know, but it worked better for this gag because it is a rearrangement of the word "star". I like a reality show where the losers are killed onstage. That's how I roll.

The "seeing-eye man" is a fun gag about a blind dog. Some dogs are actually blind, I used to have one myself, so I'm surprised I didn't get some hate mail from readers who found it insensitive. I have gotten a fair amount of hate mail in the past few days over a couple of other comics, which I will be sharing with you in a post in the very near future.

I got no hate mail about this last cartoon, either. I guess nobody feels sorry for museum busts, like this one of Michael Jackson. That, in itself, makes me feel sorry for them and now I'm sorry I ever did this cartoon. My sincere apologies to any and all busts who read Bizarro. I have betrayed you and I regret it. Please excuse my poor judgment, it won't happen again.

More tomorrow. We've been dumped on by a few thousand tons of snow here in Brooklyn, again. Bizarro International Headquarters is still digging its way out.

To find many fine products with these cartoons on them, just click the cartoon!

.

Holiday Message

For those of you who care about this sort of thing, here is a link to an essay by comedian, Ricky Gervais, about his reasons for being atheist and how he deals with it in a world that is predominately hostile towards his lack of belief. His views also happen to be mine.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

Bizarro Family Holiday Newletter

The Bizarro Family Holiday Newsletter, 2010, is brought to you by Holiday Gift Ideas.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Quanza, and Happy New Year to you all! Well, it is hard to believe that another year has passed here at Bizarro Headquarters, it certainly was a full one and brought many blessings!

Going all the way back to last spring, we received the wonderful news that my eldest daughter, Krapuzar, was getting married even though she was neither pregnant nor getting ugly. Having long ago become convinced that she was a lesbian, this was a shock to the entire family. And the best news of all was that the young man she married is not an asshole in any way, shape, or form. I don't think he even has an asshole, that's how special he is! We couldn't love him more, unless he were rich.

My youngest daughter, Krelspeth, had a very blessed year, too, as she did not add a single letter or piece of punctuation to her police record. Yes, 2010 will go down in Piraro family lore as the year that her police file remained in the file drawer throughout! Great job, honey! We all love you! (If you're reading this, call us. We won't try to find you or judge anything you've done. We just want to know you're all right.)

CHNW and I are doing well, too, and have much to be thankful for this year. We finally stopped going to the marriage counselor and so we saved a lot of money! We have also found that we argue less and enjoy each other's company more since the majority of our marital strife in recent years seemed to be centered around the fact that that cow of a counselor always took CHNW's side on everything! Even when she was caught shoplifting. I mean, I think a man has a right to complain about the cost of bail and legal representation when his wife is arrested for attempting to steal a pregnancy test, which she could easily have afforded! Don't you? Especially when that man got a vasectomy 7 years ago, so she couldn't possibly be pregnant in the first place. Give me a break.

I also received news from afar that was quite a surprise. Apparently I have a son that I never knew about and whose mother I don't even remember. He lives in a part of far northern Canada that can only be reached by dogsled and is very dangerous to even attempt to get to, and it only costs him $500 a month to live there. That's pretty cheap considering it includes food, utilities, housing and transportation! I'm sending it to him until he gets on his feet, one of which was nearly gnawed off by a polar bear he startled late one evening while taking out the trash. I feel really blessed by this new relationship, not only because he is a terrific young man, but because he could easily have lived somewhere like Paris and needed way more money every month. I mean, when I was traveling in Paris in my early years, I got lucky WAY more often than when I was in Canada. Which, to be honest, I don't remember ever visiting.

Career-wise, Bizarro has had a terrific year, too. To date, I have made over $61 from the ads on my blog, which thousands of people read every day for free. Forget about the PayPal Donation button just to the right of this post, just knowing that my copious efforts give you an occasional smile is payment enough for me.

Another great feather in my cartoonist cap is that another year has passed without some big, lumbering corporate movie studio making some glitzy, multimillion dollar 3-D animated abomination of my cartoons. What could be worse than having some Hollywood blockbuster with your name all over it and then watch it in the theaters and say, "Hey, that's not what I had in mind at all. That's kind of stupid." So, I've dodged that bullet for another year, thanks for asking.

Speaking of "dodging a bullet," I was very lucky and blessed to have dodged the one fired out front of our building last October. It seems the instigator of that particular flying piece of hot lead was the girlfriend of the guy who works at the tattoo parlor on the corner. She suspected he was "fooling around" with her cousin, to whose buttocks he evidently had recently applied a "Tweety Bird" tattoo. I was on my way to the deli across the street when I heard the whole story, or her side of it at least, and the bullets began flying. One narrowly missed my left ear by the sound of the air being cleaved by it. The tattoo guy was not as blessed as I was that day, however, as she managed to blow holes through several brightly-colored carp on his chest. Now we'll never know his side of the story.

That's the update from Bizarro Headquarters this year, hope your year was as special as ours. From all of us to all of you, may the invisible super hero in the sky of your faith bless us all in the coming year!


.

Catasrophe Update

For those of you who have not read the account of my beloved wife, CHNW, getting hit by an anonymous Taxi last Friday night in NYC, click here to catch up on the story.

Now that you're caught up, I just wanted to say thanks to all the quadrillions of you who have left nice comments, sent Facebook messages or emails, or used the pathetically old-fashioned telephone system to wish her well. She appreciates it and is doing great.

Here now are a few pics of the healing process. Photo number one is of us in the hospital. CHNW loves to take pictures of herself looking at all ridiculous, be it from bad hair, a funny wig or hat, silly sunglasses, or after she has bounced her head off the street. So this first picture is taken by her camera and her own hands, at the height of the festival of medical bills. I popped into the pic with my extra-big-deluxe-executive lip, which I pull out of storage any time there is a worthy "poor baby" situation, for which this certainly qualified.

Picture two was taken at home the following day as she lay in her luxurious four-poster bed, ringing a tiny bell every few minutes to summon me to help her because she was "dizzy" or "weak." What a big baby. Sometimes I had to get her a glass of water, sometimes a cup of soup, which entailed my peeling the paper lid off of a cardboard container and pouring hot water into it. You can't believe how hard it is to walk into the next room with one of those things without spilling it. Meanwhile, I had to make my own breakfast, lunch and dinner for two solid days! Now I know how Civil War nurses must have felt. No thank you, Clara Barton!*

She took this picture partly because she thought that the purple of the "boxer's eye" really set off the blue of the unmolested one. I couldn't agree more, that one side of her face has never looked lovlier.

Finally, here she is as she looks today, up and around and getting her own damn soup. It's great to have her back. The cool thing about CHNW's bruising is that because she has a mechanical heart valve (from a past medical problem, not the cab), she takes a blood thinner every day. This does weird things to her bruises and the resulting kaleidoscope of colors and shapes is breathtaking. It will change many times over the next few weeks, like an over-decorated house in the suburbs of Wichita, perfect for the holiday season.

What you may not be able to fully appreciate from this picture, though, is that her eye has a distinct oval of black and purple around it, the sort you might expect a first-year movie makeup student to do on their first attempt. If I were the instructor, I'd recommend a little less makeup and a little more blending. But what's really horrific is that just today she is beginning to develop a large circle of chartreuse around it, reaching all the way down to her jaw line. In the coming days it will get even more pronounced and promises to be positively Halloweeny. I'll keep you updated.

For those of you who have recommended litigation, rest assured that we have a close friend who is a very successful personal injury lawyer and he will be leading the charge against the ironically named, TLC. (Taxi and Limousine Commission) We don't want to retire to South America, just get the med bills paid and around $80,000 for my own pain and suffering while having to play nursemaid.

















*Note to those of you who do not know me personally: I'm not as big a jackass as I portray myself here. I've been taking good care of her and have not said a peep about being put out. I'm sure being a Civil War nurse was more difficult than what I've been dealing with. The amputations without anesthesia alone were probably a major buzzkill.


.

Quintuple Tragedy

(click the pic to make it big)

Bizarro is brought to you today by A Leisurely Drive.

Hey, I went to a holiday party last night and they had a very fun live band. But it turned out that was not the most exciting part of the evening.

Nor was the most exciting part when we left the place at midnight, hailed a cab out front of our friends' building, and my formerly lovely wife, Ashley, stuck her head into the passenger-side door window and said to the driver, "Will you take us to Brooklyn?"

The most exciting part was when the cabbie suddenly stepped on the gas (fear of Brooklyn? involuntary leg spasm?), throwing my formerly lovely wife to the street, conking her head on the pavement and knocking her unconscious.

Not being a trained crime fighter, instead of drawing my gun and shooting at the cab or simply getting the car's number, I fell to my knees and began shouting to her, asking if she was okay. She was not okay, as her bloodied and sleeping face quickly told me.

I called 911, they came quickly, tossed us into an ambulance and brought us to an emergency room at the other end of the bumpiest street in the tri-state area. With what it costs to ride in an ambulance, you'd assume that included some sort of suspension system, but you'd be wrong.

Upon entering the ER, the first thing I learned was that all of the employees are superstitious. They forced me to put my camera phone away, presumably fearing I would steal their souls. I told them I had all I could handle with my own soul and had no interest in theirs, but that reassurance seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Now in the trauma room, at first there was a lot of clothes-cutting, shouting of inane questions to get a brief test of Ashley's I.Q. –– What's your name? What day is this? Do you realize we're ruining your fancy party clothes by cutting them off because it is so much more dramatic than removing them the normal way? –– and bandying-about of medical terms like "stat", "cc", "saline," and, "Sir, put that camera away, we're not going to ask again!"

One interesting thing I found out was that you don't really have to leave the trauma room if you don't want to. I learned this after they asked me several times, rather sternly, to step outside and I simply said, "no." Instead of calling security or producing a taser, they just sort of looked disappointed and went on about their business. In their defense, however, they were being forced to ask me and this caused them fear; "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to wait outside," they said over and over. "No," I blandly stated each time and this seemed to allay their fears for a few more minutes. I was, after all, standing calmly off to the side, not scrubbing up and offering to help.

After seven hours of poking, prodding, testing, and mostly waiting on gunshot and knifing victims to be treated, they gave her a couple of stitches in her eyebrow where previously there were none and sent us home, warning her to keep her head away from speeding taxis and the pavement until it healed.

They further admonished her not to get the wound wet for 24 hours, which is a real drag because she has quite a lot of dried blood in her hair. I'm sure it will be uncomfortable for her to sleep with dried blood in her hair and I'm not downplaying that at all, but what about me? I have to sleep with a woman with a face like Rocky Balboa and dried blood in her hair. That's not something I thought I'd ever say.

CHNW is a real trooper and was happy to allow me to publish these pics of her and make a humorous post out of this otherwise unfun event.

I would like to offer two bits of advice to you, dear reader:
1. If you are in NYC, do not ask a cab driver if he will take you somewhere. Get in the cab, close the door, and tell him where he is taking you. By law, they have to do it, but if your destination is not as profitable as they'd like, they will often get away before you can get in.
2. Avoid the holidays. You're safer at home where nothing moves quickly enough to knock you down.


.

Piglet Pokey

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Magic of Ham.

Today's post features two old cartoons from the late 1900s, which I came across while searching for something else. I really like both of these cartoons because they take well-known topics and combine them in new, thought-provoking ways. Neither of them really mean anything, although they kind of seem like they might.

This is also the trick to great song lyrics. Take a song like "Losing My Religion" (or almost anything by REM) and try to figure out exactly what it means. It's relative nonsense, but you relate to it somehow and twist it into a personal meaning, almost subconsciously.

I'm not saying these cartoons take on a personal meaning for anybody, most people don't dwell on cartoons long enough, but it's fun to play with that edge. For me, that's what creativity is all about.

Even now, I'm not entirely sure what I mean by what I've just written, but it seems like it means something. I should also say that I don't eat animals anymore, I've been vegan since 2002, but at the time I wrote this Piglet cartoon the vegetarian message was not on my radar at all. It can have a hidden animal rights message if you want to apply one, but I was actually still a corpse eater when I drew it.

Regarding the Hokey Pokey Stew cartoon, I was not vegan when I wrote this cartoon, either, but was still not in the habit of eating human feet. So, no, this was not intended as an anti-cannibalism message, although you can turn it into one now if you wish. Whatever that means.

I hope you have enjoyed reading these rambling paragraphs eight times more than I have enjoyed typing them. Until tomorrow, my friend...

.

Not My Leak

WTF? First, I am accused of throwing a cable guy off my roof (see yesterday's post) now the WikiLeaking thing. The spelling is different, though.

(click pic to enlarge)


.

Watching

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Sudsy Feet.

After I published my previous post about the sort of TV shows I truly hate, many readers asked what shows I like. Some people are always trying to look on the bright side of things, declare the glass half full, pointing out the silver lining, filling the shoes with chocolate feet. (I made that last one up but I think it works.)

So here follows a list of shows I am addicted to, in no particular order. I watch TV every night, I fully admit. Some may say I watch TV too much, but I also read every night and exercise every day, so it all evens out. (If lifting a bottle of scotch can be considered exercise, and I am pretty certain it can. Especially when it's full.)

Comedy:
East Bound and Down (HBO) Kenny and Stevie rule!
Weeds (Showtime) Rent the first season, watch it from the beginning. So great.
Californication (Showtime) Great writing, acerbic humor.
Bored to Death (HBO) Not brilliant, but funny and anything with Zach Galifianakis is worth watching. Ted Danson is great in this, too. (Met Zach once and he was already a fan of Bizarro. I peed my pants a little.)
Community (NBC) Major network sit-com, but give it a chance from the first episode. Great comedy writing and characters. Senor Chang is classic.
Raising Hope (FOX) very strange characters, Cloris Leachman is brilliant, as is Garret Dillahunt as Burt.
Children's Hospital (Cartoon Network, Adult Swim) Rob Corddry created it and stars. So weird.
Louie (FX) Louie C.K.'s avant-garde sit-com.
Modern Family (ABC) One of the funniest sit-coms to come out of a major network in ages. Ty Burrell is brilliant.
30 Rock (NBC) Entire cast is brilliant, the writing is top notch.

Drama:
Dexter (Showtime) See the first season.
Mad Men (AMC) Watch from the beginning, truly top notch. (CHNW and I ran into John Hamm in a restaurant once, got to talking and had dinner with him. Super sweet guy. This was years before he was famous. Weird coincidence.)
Breaking Bad (AMC) Possibly the best drama on TV in ten years or more. My opinion, of course. Definitely watch it from the beginning, don't just drop in on it.
True Blood (HBO) A complete lark, a guilty pleasure. Not brilliant, but tons o' fun. Could be considered a comedy, too.
Damages (FX) First season is brilliant.
Rubicon (AMC) Fairly new show, I'm really digging it. Watch from beginning, very complex plot.
Boardwalk Empire (HBO) Terrific show with the sort of long term appeal of Sopranos.
Terriers (FX) A new show that I've really fallen in love with. Great characters and acting.
FlashForward (ABC) I was really hooked on this show but I'm told it got canceled. Damn.

I used to be hooked on Keith Oberman every night, but politics sicken me and I find that I'm much less agitated if I ignore them altogether. So many crazy, frightened people in the world. I can't look any more.

There are a few others I watch but those above make up my "must see" list. Of course, it goes without saying (then why am I saying it?) that anything with Ricky Gervais is a must see. Extras on HBO (I'm not sure if they're making that anymore), the original "The Office" from BBC or whoever (the America version is good, too, but I've never gotten hooked on it because I think it pales in comparison to the British one), any talk show, awards show, or guest appearance. No one funnier in the world. Russell Brand is always worth my time, too, as is Zach Galifianakis and a few others.

Feel free to suggest your favorites. Not that I have any room in my schedule, but you never know when something might get canceled.

This post is too long. It's verging on the stupidity of all those millions of Tweets that document utterly unimportant and self indulgent information. Ick.

Oh yeah, hope you enjoyed today's cartoons.

Not Really Back

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long, I've been performing in Tulsa and visiting family. I'm catching up on deadlines today but will back tomorrow blogging like a mofo. Come back and have an ogle!

The Hole Thing

A fine website answering to the name "The Comics Journal," has published a three-part interview of myself. Against my innate sense of modesty and with great shame, I provide you here below with links to the whole shebang. WARNING: This interview is NOT appropriate for people not able to read.
Part 1 of 3

Part 2

Part 3



.

TALK TOO MUCH

I recently did an interview with The Comics Journal and they have posted the first of three parts here:

http://www.tcj.com/interviews/a-conversation-with-bizarro-cartoonist-dan-piraro-part-one-of-three/

Good lord, I talk a lot. They say that in Part 2 I talk about "why comic strips have gotten so bad." I hope I didn't name names.



.

Cool Hot Deal

If you find yourself reading this blog regularly and saying quietly within your own mind something like, "That Piraro has real class. I'll bet he'd never sell out," you'd be wrong.

In fact, I recently discovered a need within my own personal life for a space heater. A few years ago I need bar stools, but at the moment, I have plenty of those and it happens to be a space heater that is the object of my desire. Sometimes the space I am occupying is colder than I'd like so a device that would heat that space would be perfect. Then I remembered that a pretty immense website called CSN, which features like 200 different stores that sell just about everything on earth, asked me if I would review a product of theirs. I looked through their site and what do you know? Yes, they have space heaters, a gazillion of them, so I asked them to send one to me to review. The cool part of this transaction is that I get to keep it! It's one of the small perks I get from having a blog that I never make money from. Maybe the only perk, come to think of it. (Anyone interested in having me review health insurance?)

Of course, I could have chosen a clock that has something to do with the water, but I chose a space heater. I just hope it heats small spaces, like the one I'm sitting in now, and not all of space. Like where the planets float. That could be a problem.

I'll let you know which one it does after it arrives.

Death Disease Advertising

Bizarro is brought to you today by Waxy Heston.

Just for the sake of doing something different, today I'll start out with an old cartoon from the Bizarro archives, and then move on to the more recent cartoons. If you're uncomfortable with this change and would like to reverse this order, click here.

Here is a cartoon from 1996, only a few months after my first wife and I suddenly split up as a result of a dispute over the 7th commandment. I'm not a big fan of most of the commandments but this is one that remains one of my general rules in life for both myself and my partner. I guess I'm just an old-fashioned boy from Tulsa.

During this time I was very upset as a rule, and at times I was downright suicidal. The normally painful act of scraping a new cartoon out of the folds of my brain each day was exceptionally excruciating during this period, when all I really wanted to do was fantasize about double homicide. But my regular habits of eating daily and living indoors depended on it, so I soldiered on. This cartoon is an excellent example of how one can turn one's darker thoughts into comedy fit for public consumption.

In contrast, these days I'm pretty happy so my jokes are not mostly about death. Here's one, for example, that is about disease. The spelling error idea was sent to me by a reader and this is how I used it. A close friend of mine recently got a random staph infection in his eye and nearly lost it. No kidding, you shouldn't play around with that stuff. Eyes are handy, especially in pairs. He's better now, thanks.

This last idea I got while watching Mad Men, one of my favorite television programs. I think of myself as a sort of Don Draper type, except I'm not living under an assumed identity, I'm not in advertising, and I'm not suave and irresistible to women. Other than that, though...

Dog Judge Voyeur

Bizarro is brought to you today by Jailer's School.

I got some interesting mail on the dog cartoon. A handful of people wrote to me and said how much they liked this cartoon, two of whom were professional cartoonists. This surprised me a bit, I didn't think it was all that clever, just sort of a funny visual. One site, The Comics Curmudgeon, one of my favorite daily reads and one that makes its bread by skewering cartoons, posted it just because they liked it. I secretly always wanted to be on that site but not for the eviscerating reasons that cartoons usually end up there. It was a dream come true.

Even more surprising was an email from someone who normally loves my work but hated this one because it was "cruel." Perhaps they did not realize it is only a cartoon man, no "real" people got hurt.

This brings us to Casual Friday. I've never worked in an office with a dress code and have always pitied those who do. It's particularly ridiculous when you have to wear something completely outside the norm, like a choir robe. Would people show less respect for someone in a suit? The British really go to town with this tradition, dressing their judges up like old women. Even their lawyers (which they have another name for; "chips" is it?) have to wear wigs and doilies. Try as I might, I cannot understand this kind of behaviour. (spelled the British way.) For consistency's sake, they should also make the defendants dress up in costumes. Perhaps something more amusing to break up all that black and grey. I'd like to suggest a duck costume since if things don't go well, they may be going "up the river."

Today's ancient offering is about history, science, voyeurism and religion. Here in NYC, people regularly spy on each other with binoculars and telescopes. It's just a given when so many of us live so closely together in high-rise buildings. You get used to it and don't think anything about it after a while. When I first came to NYC, my future wife, CHNW, used to routinely walk around her apartment at night in various stages of undress. I asked her why she didn't close her blinds and she said, quite innocently, "What's the point? The only thing across the street is a rectory full of priests." (Not to be confused with a rectum full...)

I shudder to think how many crises of faith she instigated as those poor souls struggled to maintain their commitment to celibacy. Except for the gay or pedophile ones, of course.

.

Angel Horse English

Bizarro is brought to you today by Great Abs.

After more than 25 years as a daily cartoonist and over 9000 published cartoons, I find that I sometimes copy myself. This angel cartoon is one such occasion. When I wrote it a few weeks ago, I thought it was completely original, but a few days after it was submitted I was digging through old archives, gathering super hero cartoons for my next book, and saw an old Bizarro with the identical concept. If I'd thought to write down the date, I could have shown it to you here.

Instead, I'll have to use what I call "language" to describe it: A couple of angels in Heaven are looking at another angel who is upside-down, his head and shoulders buried in the clouds. His halo is above his feet, his robe is falling down, but not far enough to expose his underpants (which would be considered pornographic by daily funny pages standards.) One of the two onlookers says, "In life, he was a performance artist."

I was shocked to find that I had ripped myself off so closely without even knowing it; thank god it was one of my own gags and not someone else's. I've done that on a couple of occasions, too, and felt like a quantity of feces.

And now a horse-in-a-bar joke. This is one of those weird cartoons that doesn't relate much to real life, but to me, much of the humor is in the look on the horse's face. I put a lot of effort into getting just the right attitude and expression on my characters, I hope you, the reader, notice and appreciate that. Some do, some don't, that's the way the cartoon cookie crumbles.

I got out of the habit of posting older cartoons for a while, but I enjoy it and so do many readers (perhaps you are one of those?) so I'm back to it today. I've always enjoyed this take on the cliche of the guy whose wife doesn't understand him. In fact, this guy could have been me.

When I was 20, I traveled through Europe with a backpack and a train pass and while in Milan, I met a beautiful Romanian woman who was a few years older than I. We spent many weekends visiting museums and parks together and I developed a huge crush on her and would have been stupid enough to marry her and take her back home with me if she'd been willing. Thankfully she wasn't. She spoke five or six languages fluently, but English was not one of them. We communicated by means of a bizarre combination of the hundred-or-so English words she knew and the hundred-or-so Italian words in my vocabulary. The rest was pantomime and pictographs. It was terribly romantic but I can only imagine what calamity would have ensued if she'd come back to the U.S. with me, learned English, and we had found out what each other were really like.

I dodged that bullet, but caught many others throughout my foolish, youthful romantic escapades. But how many of us escape life without a few romantic bullet wounds? As somebody once said: Better to have loved and to have been ripped apart over and over again by the machine gun of ill-advised sexual choices than to have never loved at all. Amen, brother.

Even I'm Confused

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unclear Signage.

I got a lot of questions about the beer cartoon, primarily because it is rather opaque and not particularly well done. Some people tried to make it a complete sentence – "I bean my mug" – others were unsure what it was in the first place – "I (rock? bean?) my coffee."

It doesn't make a sentence, it's just that I replaced the usual heart with a kidney to refer to how quickly beer goes through you. I know, it doesn't really make much sense. I may have been drunk when I drew this one.

The next cartoon was one I wondered if people would understand but I didn't get any mail from confused readers after all. I'm still guessing some people just thought the guy was exasperated because the printer was out of ink. But I intended to show that he was "low" on ink, the way a person might get "high" on something. The way I originally drew this was rejected because it was felt that if I showed someone drinking, eating, or inhaling an ink cartridge, some kid would try it and die and I'd be accused of corrupting the public. If you promise not to try this because I'm telling you right now it might kill you, I'll show you the original image.

That's all for today, have to walk the dog now.

Devlish Pundit

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Face of Fear.

Although I admit that I think Glenn Beck is a dangerous lunatic, I didn't see this cartoon as particularly partisan. Mostly, it is just meant to describe Beck as someone who believes in The Devil and would debate him if he could. Both of which I'd guess are true. And most readers did not take offense or I would have gotten more complaints. As it is, I only received one comment on this cartoon and I'm not sure it was even a complaint, per se. It follows, in its entirety, minus the signature.

"I like Bizarro in my daily newspaper. I like Glenn Beck better."

I assume this person thought this cartoon was vaguely offensive to Beck, but I'm not sure in what way. If you're a follower of Beck's and believe him to be a sensible person in control of his mental faculties, what would be offensive about this? I can't see it. Perhaps it is the fact that this cartoon is only actually humorous to those of us who see him as insane and fans of his find this notion offensive in and of itself. Which I suppose I can understand.

For readers who like both Bizarro and Beck, I hope I haven't lost you on this. I've given up on hoping that anything I say or do will ever contribute to sensible politics on planet Earth, I'm just resigned to trying to make people laugh, make a living and sleep indoors. The overwhelming majority of my cartoons are not political so there's still plenty to enjoy.

Invasion Scenario

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hot Letters.

I drew this cartoon because I, myself, am a non-Henderson. 'Nuff said.

Here is a story about last night:
CHNW and I were spending a quiet evening in our upstairs living room watching television when suddenly, around midnight, I spotted movement in my periphery and turned my head to the darkened corner of the room where our spiral staircase ascends from the ground floor. There, rising like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, was a large male figure.

Huge, pointy-clawed hands which I did not know resided within my chest grabbed my heart and squeezed hard, using their hairy elbows to push all of the air out of my lungs. For a solid 2 seconds, I was certain we were the victims of a home invasion and my mind raced to think what pointy or heavy object was within arm's length with which I could defend our lives and homestead. As he reached the top step and moved into the room, my razor-sharp brain suddenly recognized him and the claws let go of my heart as I was able to breath again.

For the past few days, CHNW and I have had a house guest, whom we will call Victor because that is his name. He is a youngster, college-age, and he was spending a few days in the city to see some Broadway shows and get lost in the city trying to navigate the subway system. Last night he went to see Avenue Q, a terribly funny show which I can recommend to anyone who enjoys funny things. (CHNW and I were watching HBO's True Blood, which I can recommend to anyone who likes blood.) Victor had been gone since around noon and I didn't hear him come in downstairs. Because my mind is more like a pocket calculator than a desktop computer, I had forgotten all about him.

In all my life I've never been so happy to see a male college student and he, CHNW and I had a good laugh. CHNW pointed out that the only weapon-worthy object in the room was my statue from the National Cartoonists Society. Victor came very close to being the first person in history to be murdered by a Reuben Award; a very dubious distinction, indeed.

And I would likely have been the first person to use the "I'm sorry, officer, I forgot he was staying with us" defense.

Dead Like Me

Bizarro is brought to you today by a Man With A Big Heart.

This gag was given to me by my good friend and fellow cartoonist, Michael Capozzola, author of Surveillance Caricatures in the San Francisco Chronicle, stand-up comedian, actor, play-on-words expert.

The older I get the less I like going to doctors. I've never enjoyed it, lord knows, but lately I've begun thinking what is really the point at all?

I've never been one to run to the doc for a cold or flu, they can't do anything for you anyway, it's just a needless expense. I have found over the years that if I fight my way through the occasional sickness with ibuprofen and good nutrition, I get sick much less often than my friends who are hooked on antibiotics. The fact that I eat a healthy vegan diet (as opposed to an unhealthy vegan diet full of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and fried foods) and exercise moderately leaves me much less vulnerable to most "big" diseases, but even if I come down with one, chances are I won't be able to pay for the treatment.

I don't have health insurance because the insurance industry's number one job is to find a way not to pay back the tens of thousands that you've paid them over the years. It is quite literally their business model. I used to have it but came to see it as a false sense of security: even if you get sick or injured, chances are they will find a way to disqualify you. Then you're sick and frustrated with the unmistakable feeling that you've been screwed. Since I'm self employed there is no one to pay for part of mine, so it's like another mortgage payment each month to carry even bare-bones catastrophic.

So I've gotten used to the idea that as long as I live in the U.S. if I get really sick, I'll just die. I won't care after I'm dead, any more than I care what I'm missing when I'm asleep. Quality of life is more important to me than quantity, so I do what I can to keep myself healthy and if I get unlucky anyway, so be it. I'd rather die at home (or at my own hands if it gets too painful) than in a hospital hooked to machinery and leaving my family bankrupt or with a huge insurance company battle on their hands.

I know this isn't conventional and doesn't make sense to most people, but it's my choice. To hell with doctors, insurance companies and our corrupt health care system; I'm tired of buying yachts for others. We've known it sucks for a long time and we refuse to fix it.

For now, my motto: Eat right, exercise, die like a human. Of course, my tune might change if I get diagnosed with something wicked. It's easy to talk this way when you're still healthy.

Old Baggage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Well Grammar.

This cartoon are a take on a cartoon cliche, the one of the woman with her packed bags is leaving the house and says something funny to her husband about it. Their are lots of cartoons like that. I was thinking about cartoons to write and decided to make it the same kind of picture with a different funny line for the punchline. Instead of really leaving the husband of her, she is really only taking old suitcases out to their trash and the reader is suprised.

This caption I have changed before putting it here on the blogs because I had the word "bring" instead of the word "take." A reader wrote me an email and said that bring is for when you are coming toward and take is for when they are going away. Since the wife is going away from where she now is, I had the wrong word---bring--- and changed it now to be correct---take. I always forget that rule about bring and take I was raised in Oklahoma and most people there use those words as the same meaning. Old habits dye hard I guess.