Halloween

Bizarro is brought to you today by Pumpkin
Abuse.

It is Halloween weekend and if I were a 10-year-old child I'd be getting my costume ready for trick-or-treating. But since I am ancient and my sciatica is acting up, I'll probably stay in with my nurse and have her rub liniment on my lower back. Did I mention my nurse is a 24-year-old student from Sweden?

A few years ago, I started doing "Scariest Halloween Costumes of (year)" Sunday cartoons and have kept that tradition. Here today are all of them since 2007 when I began.

(click the cartoon images for a biggerer view)
As you can see, the first one is graphically fairly simple in comparison to what I did in later years. In this one I referred to global warming, the lead toys from China scandal, NFL quarterback Michael Vick's dog fighting problems, more about the environment with the over-zealous breeders, and the consistently abhorrent anti-role models, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Strangely, I got the most hate mail about the population crisis. Many fundamentalist Christians took exception to my contradiction of their lord's instructions to "be fruitful and multiply." I still contend He was talking about practicing your math skills.

In '08, an election year, I touched on the collapsing economy and blamed it on the Republicans, which everyone but a die-hard Republican would agree with. I also hit the TV writer's strike, which has pretty much been forgotten by now. I expected hate mail about the drunken elephant and got some.

2009 brought the term "Zombie bank" into the popular lexicon, which was a natural for this. It was also the year Kanye West made an ass of himself at the MTV awards (or whatever it was), Michael Jackson died, and Fox and it's minions funded and organized the faux grass-roots protests about health care reform. I got hate mail about the health care reform aspect on this one, of course.

This year's cartoon does not touch on political events at all, though there were plenty of easy targets. The Fox News funded and organized, faux grass-roots Tea Baggers would have been an obvious choice but American politics have become so incredible incendiary and stupid that I no longer bother to editorialize. (Except here on this blog.) I've decided that such things do nothing to change anyone's mind and amid the current epidemic of idiocy, I might get tarred and feathered or lynched. Still, I think the three topics I chose are funny, especially the little Jesse James Nazi kid with his toy chopper bike. Although Jay Leno stealing candy from a baby makes me smile, too. I can't imagine what hate mail I could get from this one but I'm often surprised. I'll keep you updated.

Have fun on Halloween this year and be safe. Unless being safe ruins your fun, in which case you should just go for it. What's a few less humans on a crowded planet?

Italian Spiderman

I posted this video on this blog a couple of years ago but it definitely bears repeating. Enjoy.

Pow Sex Tights

Bizarro is brought to you today by Ovum Racists.

Two super hero cartoons today, because I'm still in the super hero mode to load up my new book of Bizarro super hero cartoons coming out next spring, which I've talked about enough on this blog to make me vomit. Why do I keep talking about it? I don't know, maybe I'm hoping that it will sell more than a dozen copies and break all previous records for Bizarro books.

As much as it makes my gout flare up to admit it, I was a kid back in the late '60s when the original Batman TV show aired. If you've never seen it, do so. It was a gem. It was The Simpsons of its day in the sense that it ran in prime time, had big ratings, and was so quirky that celebrities were lining up to do cameos on it. But that's not important right now. What's important is that they had several corny fight scenes in each show, during which a giant "Pow!" or "Zok!" or "Bap!" was written across the screen in big comic book lettering. Just like in this cartoon, which is why I like it. Now you can stop wondering.

And what a great segue it was to have the word "wondering" in that last sentence. Because now we will talk about Wonder Woman. Wow. What a babe. In the late 60s, porn was not readily available to young boys such as myself, so Wonder Woman comic books were the object of my desires and fantasies. Oh, to be tied up by her magic lasso and...perhaps I'll leave the details for another blog, one about embarrassing personal sexual fantasies involving fictional Amazonian cartoon characters.

So here is Wonder Woman shopping for threads and it brings to mind another cartoon I did about super hero fashion, fresh from the dank archives of Bizarro International Headquarters.

Have a super day.

Fun Web Site

Today I'd like to mention a favorite web site of mine. It's called Fwithpeople.com and every day some guy named Doug writes emails back and forth with an unsuspecting person, just to be an idiot and "F" with them. It's not as cruel as it sounds (or as you might hope it would be if you're a heartless "A" hole) but it's funny. I always get a smile or six from it so I wanted to share.

Directions:
1. click link
2. read some of it
3. bookmark
4. repeat

http://fwithpeople.com/


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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.

Zilla Math Cell Phone

Bizarro is brought to you today by No One Zilla.

Today is a special presentation of Unusual Mail From Unusual Readers. The day after the Godzilla cartoon at left ran in the paper, I was copied on the following email, sent to the Tacoma News Tribune editor. The author allowed that I may post this letter here as long as I do not edit it in any way, including his "job title."

October 19, 2010

Dear Tacoma News Tribune Editors:

I would like to correct a misperception that Dan Piraro, creator of the
"Bizarro" comic panel, has introduced with his 10/18/10 panel. In it he shows a
Godzillan instructor before a blackboard on which the populations of Tokyo and
Wyoming are written (12,790,000 and 493,782, respectively), explaining to a
couple of lecture attendees that "As you can see, the caloric density of Tokyo
is more than two dozen times that of the entire state of Wyoming." While
technically correct, this vastly understates Tokyo's superiority as a homo
sapien meat source over Wyoming. Piraro has made the simple error of dividing
the two populations to obtain his "two dozen times" figure. Caloric density,
however, is a function of food source population divided by the food source's
geographical area. Tokyo covers 844 square miles while Wyoming covers 97,814
square miles, meaning that the caloric densities of Tokyo and Wyoming are 15,154
humans per square mile and 5 humans per square mile, respectively. Thus the
caloric density of Tokyo is more than 3,000 or 250 dozen times that of Wyoming,
not 24 or two dozen as Piraro states. For any species dependent in whole or
part on human flesh for its survival, that is a huge difference. (Why the
difference? Overconsumption of human stock in Wyoming by Tyrannosaurus Dick.)
I don't wish to unduly criticize Dan Piraro, who is a fine cartoonist, but I'm
sure that if Gary Larson were still covering the animal husbandry beat, this
error would not have crept into the pages of your newspaper. I hope you will
publish this letter to properly inform your readers of Tokyo's true magnificence
as a food source. To reassure readers unable to afford transoceanic passage to
Japan, I note that the caloric densities of Tacoma and Seattle are 4,107 and
6,799 humans per square mile, respectively. While Seattle-area metropolises
don't offer as calorie-abundant an environment as Tokyo, Seattleites' rich diet
of liberal hypocrisy, complacency, and arrogance make them some of the tastiest
eating on the planet.

Sincerely,
Brett Landgraf
The Pink Nigger

His math is correct, of course, and I regret the error. Mr. Landgraf and I have corresponded on another occasion, which I will not post in its entirety here, in which he explained why he insists on being called "The Pink Nigger." His answer, paraphrased, is that his skin is pink (caucasian) and he is, at least in part, a slave to property and labor markets. My guess is that he is fiercely libertarian, but I could be wrong. Whatever his philosophy, I found his letter amusing and wanted to share. (Note: I'm not one to believe that words are taboo, only context. If I thought his use of "nigger" was meant to promote racism, I wouldn't have posted it here.)

On to the next cartoon: I thought of this gag when trapped in public on my cell phone during a difficult conversation. I wanted to scream but did not wish to abuse the others around me. And no, it was not a conversation with CHNW.

For today's blast from the Bizarro archives, click on the No One Zilla link in the first sentence of this post.

Cheers. (salutation, not sit-com)



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Pockets

(click the cartoon above for a bigger Koala)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Tiger Urine.

As I've mentioned many times before and you're sick to death of hearing, I'm publishing a book of Bizarro super hero cartoons next spring. The thing is that even though I've been doing super hero spoofs (what a great word "spoof" is) fairly regularly for 25 years, there still weren't quite enough to fill a book, so I've been writing lots of super hero gags in the past couple/three months to fill out the quota. Some of my friends and collaborators have been good enough to send me their super hero ideas, too. Thanks for all the help.

I like the idiocy of a super hero who carries a fanny pack in case there might be something in it that can help in a crisis, and I really like the perspective I drew this from. The windows in the pink building get pretty wonky toward the top, they're not really in correct perspective at that point, but I drew this out of my head without reference, rulers or straightedges of any kind, so I'm giving my self a break. Maybe I'll fix it for the book. Yes, I'm just that anal.

MID 1900S

I came across this video from 1954 and really dug it, daddio. SO much better than the crap that's on TV now! (shouted the crotchety old man from his lawn chair on the back porch)

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...

Samson Drugs Teabagger

Bizarro is brought to you today by Elections.

We've all had a good time the last few days discussing our various beliefs about science, diet and cancer, but now it's time to get down to something serious: comedy.

What could be more blissful and relaxing than living in a pharmaceutical ad? You feel no anxiety, you don't have to pee, you can get an erection any time the mood strikes and you can eat like a pig without worrying about your cholesterol. Of course, there are encyclopedias of terrifying side effects to consider, but those are only represented in the dulcet tones of the voice over. Nothing bad ever happens in a pharmaceutical ad. Count me in!

Less euphoric is the world of luggage transportation. Even with the unbelievably recent addition of wheels (we've had luggage and the wheel for tens of thousands of years and it was the late 20th century before anyone thought to combine them!) one still has to schlep one's luggage up and down stairs, into cars, over curbs, onto the scales at the airport, etc. If I'm traveling with the full 49.9 lbs suitcase, I always return with a backache. One would think the legendary strongman, Samson, would be immune to such human weakness, but along comes Samsonite.

Speaking of catastrophe, I'm trying hard not to worry about the elections in a couple of weeks. I know that Americans will just hand the country back over to the party that took eight years to ruin it because the current party couldn't fix it in two years. It's a done deal. So I'm telling myself ahead of time that it's already happened, things will get worse, humans are a deeply flawed species, someday I'll die and none of it will matter.

Maybe I'll be surprised and American voters in sufficient numbers will just say no to Fox News, but I think that's unlikely so we might as well have some fun with it and elect a Mr. T impersonator or a masturbation-opposing witch. As long as you're destined to listen to morons on the news for x number of years, you might as well go for the craziest ones possible. That's entertainment!

Another comedy post tomorrow, I hope to see your eyes peering through the computer screen again then, except for those of you who are big fans of Fox News and swear me off for good.

Cancer Fuss

Yesterday's post garnered some criticism about my assertion that there would be less cancer if people ate vegan diets. I don't want to start a never-ending war of comments and I normally would answer this kind of thing in the comments section itself, but this seemed important enough to post about. As requested, here is a link to one of many articles that supports my comment:

http://www.pcrm.org/resch/edresources/nutr_curr/nutr_curr_2.html

There are many other studies cited on that site, which is run by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, not fringe animal rights activists. I just wanted respond to the accusation that I am spouting off irresponsibly or without evidence. Each person's ethical code is their own business, of course, but mine does not allow the intentional victimization of another for my own benefit, except in cases of self defense against that other being. So I don't believe in torturing others to cure ourselves. That's just me, your results may vary and objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

In short, according to medical information I've read: yes, cancer has numerous causes, susceptibility is genetic, and diet can strongly affect your chances of getting it and recovering from it.

Cuss Bus Pink

Bizarro is brought to you today by Intimacy.

I was at the Ohio State University Festival of Cartoon Art over the weekend and my oh my what a dandy it was. They do this thing every three years, there are only about 250 tickets sold, and the majority of attendees are cartoonists and serious collectors and aficionados. Also in attendance were Matt Groening, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Roz Chast, Patrick McDonnell, James Sturm, Jen Sorensen, Jan Eliot, Dave Kellett, Tom Gammill, Tony Cochran, and Steve Breen. I'm sure I forgot someone, please forgive me. It was a great honor to be able to tipple with some of my heroes, particularly Groening, Spiegelman, Griffith and Chast – all four are legends of intelligent humor, something that is always in danger of extinction in this reality-show, increasingly lowbrow world.

About this passel of cartoons I've posted today to catch up: "Adult Spelling Bee" is an idea I originally published in the 90s, I think. I came across it in my archives while looking for something else and thought it was a good idea and could be done better with a little tweaking, so I rewrote it a bit and redrew it.

Because I'm compiling cartoons for my super hero collection coming out in the spring, I'm still writing super hero gags. The one about the bus is a fantasy I've had many times. I loathe sitting next to strangers on public transportation, especially talkative ones, and will do almost anything to avoid it. I'm a friendly guy, but I can't stand small talk and think few things are worse than sitting next to a chatty traveler on a long flight.





The Mothman cartoon was a collaboration with my young teenage friend, Victor. It's colored that sickening pink because it was part of a breast cancer awareness project that King Features sponsored. All of King's cartoonists were asked to color their comics pink on Sunday, October 10. They asked me to do the poster for it. I'm not a fan of cancer research and don't like supporting it monetarily because a lot of that money goes toward torturing lab animals. If humans ate vegan diets there would be substantially less cancer, but rather than inconvenience ourselves or stop doing something we enjoy, we torture and kill millions of innocent beings every year in an attempt to find ways to survive eating the wrong foods. In spite of my objections, I participated in this project because it doesn't give money to the cause directly, but mostly reminds people to get screenings so they can catch it early. Just my take on it, whatever.

Thanks to Victor for his help on Mothman, I may recolor it for the book. The pink kind of turns my stomach.

Retro Shrink Arms Nerd Speaker

Bizarro is brought to you today by Adult Speakers.

Gosh, it's good to be back at blogging. I've been busy as a very busy person this past week, out of town, suffering from inoperable hair loss, you name it. But now I'm back and blogging like a mofo, as the kids say.

Clifford, the retro caveman is a suggestion from my good friend, Cliff, so I named the character after him. He doesn't look anything like this, he looks more like this.

This cartoon with the doggy at the shrink was popular among shrinks. Several wrote to me about it which led to long email exchanges about my early childhood and feelings of inadequacy.

The long-armed doctor cartoon is one of those jokes that I wrote just to have a chance to draw a funny picture of a guy with very long arms. Every now and then that happens. Over the many years of my career, since the late 1900s, I've drawn an exaggerated version of just about every body part you can imagine. Except the naughty ones that god did not mean for us to acknowledge in public, of course. If we were not meant to be ashamed of parts of our bodies we wouldn't have been born into this word wearing underwear, I always say.

My last cartoon today is about a super hero calling himself "The Nerd." After this was published I thought I should have had a funnier line as a response. Something like, "I fill the inboxes of criminals with lame jokes." I'll likely change it to something like that for the book of super hero cartoons I have coming out in the spring.

Must get back to deadlines now, dear reader, for I am off to Columbus on Friday for Ohio State University's Festival of Cartoon Art at which I am a speaker.


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WISH I'D THOUGHT OF THIS

Just when I thought ventriloquism was corny and old hat...

Kryptonite Bulb Seuss

Bizarro is brought to you today by TONIGHT!

Wow, what a super bonus fun pack I have for you today! Our first illustration is an old header panel that I found in the archives. These things appear on the left side of my Sunday comic in some papers, so most people never get to see them. I also used this character (Psychic Salmon) on my website for a goofy fortune-telling page. Check it out here.

Now let's talk about this groovy Superman cartoon. I love it. The self-congratulatory nerd who has overcome Superman with his 99 cent phone app makes me laugh. And laughing is good. At the comedy gig I did last night I met an actress who is starring in the strange, controversial horror film, The Human Centipede, and has therefore been called upon to go to fantasy and comic conventions to publicize it. Some of her fans are even creepier than the movie.

This Edison cartoon garnered an email from a reader who said that Edison did not invent the light bulb, Tesla did. I know that Tesla was a genius on Edison's level, perhaps beyond, worked for Edison for a time and invented some things that Edison not only took credit for but never paid for, then went on to an illustrious career of his own. But I'm not sure the light bulb was one of those things. The electric motor that we still use all over the world today was Tesla's, that's all I can say for sure. If I had the stamina and motivation to look it up on Wikipedia, I could probably find the answer but it is Saturday morning and I'm feeling lazy. Either way, it's a cartoon not a history lesson, so Edison works for my purposes.

Lastly, is this odd Sunday cartoon from 2000, wherein I parody Seuss. I've been a huge fan of Dr. Seuss since I was learning to read and had a blast concocting this poem and drawing the characters. I thought you might enjoy having a look. If I was wrong, please don't say anything. It might hurt my feelings.

Have a weekend of grandeur, my friends.

OUR SUNDAY DATE

Boys, girls, men, women, undecided,

If you're like me, you're thinking, 'what can I do this Sunday that would be fun, rewarding and delicious?' The answer is only three words away: Come to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary's annual Thanksliving event!

Here's what you get:
1. To wander around the farm on a beautiful fall day and see/touch the funny/cute animals. Including big, weird turkeys walking around among the guests.
2. To hear some people talk and play music in a big, comfy, heated tent, including some comedy stylings and cartoons by yours, truly.
3. To eat a many-course feast of world-class food while you're sitting comfortably in a chair and not cooking or cleaning up afterward.
4. To meet nice people, like me and CHNW, and hear us say how great it is that you came.
5. A silent auction and raffle with a lot of amazing products donated by amazing people and companies.
6. The warm heart-cockle feeling of knowing that you donated to help rescue and care for some jolly critters who really appreciate it.

Read more, buy tickets, come see us here.

What Came Before

I wanted to share this interesting video by a brilliant animator, Nina Paley. This is part of a series of work she is doing to help reframe the debate about copyright issues. This short film has a lot to say about religion and other forms of human creativity.

Foot Baseball Guano

Bizarro is brought to you today by Lifesaving Fashion.

The gig at Caroline's last night went well, thanks to those of you who came out on a chilly Wednesday night. A few of us headed over to a bar off Times Square afterward for a few drinks; a good time was had by all. Here's a pic from the gig. Not very interesting, I know, but stand-up comedy isn't a particularly visual art form. Maybe this one of me and my mom is better.

Today I get to stay home, which I'm thrilled about. I had to run errands yesterday then get to that show, so I didn't get as much done as I should have. Tomorrow night I'm performing at Bowery Poetry Club (I'll be reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in their entirety, which will take in excess of 27 hours not counting bathroom breaks, if my calculations are correct.) Then I have to go out of town this weekend and next weekend, too, so my deadlines are threatening and I'm worried I am in for some late nights.

So let's make it a short post: Shoot yourself in the foot/aim higher. I like the gag, the art is kind of dull, but whatever.
The baseball joke is timely, the pros are in the playoffs right now. I often wonder what those guys are talking about on the mound... "You're sucking, man, if you don't stop throwing puffballs, I'm going to take you out of the game." "Oh, my mistake. You want me to throw it so they don't hit it so much? But that makes the game boring for the fans and it's already a pretty boring sport."

Lastly, here's a cartoon that ran on this day in 1996. I'm not great at math, but that's over ten years ago!

WILL FRANKEN SATURDAY IN L.A.

Since my last recommendation that you folks go to see Will Franken worked out so well for so many of you in the SF Bay Area, here's another recommendation for those of you in Los Angeles:

WILL FRANKEN
FULL-ON THEATRICAL ONE-MAN SHOW!!!! LIGHTS, SOUNDS, EVERY-MFING-THING
THEATRE ASYLUM
6320 SANTA MONICA BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9th (JOHN LENNON'S BIRTHDAY)
8pm IN THE EVENING TIME!
$15 ($5 off with password "FRIEND")

Buy the tickets online:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/130151

Just as before, you're going to want to see this guy before you die, preferably this Saturday. I guarantee he's like no other performer you've seen. Here's a clip with a warning:

THIS CLIP CONTAINS CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT MATTER AND WORDS YOUR MOTHER DOESN'T LIKE YOU TO USE. VIEWER DISCRETION AND VOLUME CONTROL ADVISED.

Crime and Sniffing

Bizarro is brought to you today by Other Cool Guys With Hats.

Good lord, this is a busy week at Bizarro International Headquarters. I'm doing a comedy set at Caroline's on Broadway tomorrow night, then Thursday is my birthday (hit "Donate" button at right, send money), then Friday night I'm one of the judges at Literary Death Match (a really unusual show full of improv, you'll likey), then Saturday morning I have to bounce (the young people use this word to mean "go") up to Woodstock Sanctuary to MC our annual Thanksliving dinner on Sunday.

Maybe this don't sound so busy to youse guys, but I normally work 8 or 10 hours each day, seven days a week to get all the crap done that is necessary to keep Bizarro Headquarters afloat. As they say in Alabama, I'm as busy as a racist at a hip-hop festival.

I usually celebrate my birthday each year by dressing like a hobo and hanging around the grounds of the governor's mansion, but this year I'm going to ignore it entirely and stay home. CHNW will likely make my favorite dinner (salt soup!) and we'll watch reruns of Hogan's Heroes. Ja wohl!

To come see me at Caroline's, click here for info.
To come see me at Literary Death Match, click here for info.
To see me at Woodstock Sanctuary, click here but it's sold out so sorry.

The bummer is that this weekend is also the New York Comic Con, which I'd like to drop into but probably won't have time.

Lastly, the old cartoon from my archives today is one that appeared when most people only saw my cartoons in actual newspapers. It doesn't work so well on the Interwebs, but feel free to lick your finger and try it. My favorite part is the last headline on the bottom of the front page. Click the image to read it more big.

COMEDY SHOW

Have you waited all your life to see me do stand-up at Caroline's on Broadway? If so, tomorrow night, Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 9:30pm is your big fat chance. Details below, see you there.

SHOW INFO

Insider tip: ** Make advanced reservations - 212-757-4100 - with code "CHEAT" for super duper cheap tickets **

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SUNDAY PUNNY

(click on the image above to make it like a big thing)

GOT AN IDEA FOR A SUNDAY PUNNY? LEAVE IT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST!

I'm looking for puns I haven't heard before, things that are unusual, odd, and most of all, funny. I can't use all the ones people send in, but I appreciate every entry, so give it a shot. Please keep in mind that you will not receive any compensation for the joke and that I'll own the copyright to it once it is used. If you want to have a little credit line at the bottom, tell me what to use. Nothing too long, please!

Thanks!

Colorwheel of Fortune

(Kids! Be the first in your local gang to click on the image above and see it BIG!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Birth of a Nation.

If you wake up enough to crawl over to a window and take a peek out the window, you may notice it's the weekend. That can mean only one thing on this blog – a Sunday comic post. But wait, today I've posted TWO Sunday comics! One from now and one from the past. Yes, this blog has time-travel capabilities.

The first difference you may notice in these cartoon is the pictures and captions are completely different. That's because I try (with varying success) not to copy myself. But look closer and you'll see deeper differences. Like color. In the cartoon above, the colors are nice. In the cartoon below, they are bad, ugly, hideous, flat, brash, rotten, crappy, garish, heinous, horrific, vomitous, nauseating, (consult Thesaurus to continue.)

That's because this older cartoon was drawn in 1999, just before I learned to color my cartoons on computer, instead of the old-fashioned method used by everyone from the turn of the nineteenth century until the computer age, designating each area with a number that represents the percentage of each of the available colors: red, yellow, blue, black. It was primitive and lord only knows how we managed in those days. We may as well have been coloring them with sticks dipped in plant dies in a log cabin by candlelight next to Abe Lincoln.

I do, however, like the line work in the older cartoon. Check out the hair of the victim's wife at far right, the one in the calamitous chartreuse outfit. I dig those curls.

A bit of fun backstory: I got an email from the offices of Wheel of Fortune (WoF, as we hardcore fans call it) and they liked this cartoon so much they would like an autographed copy to frame for their offices. What an honor. I wrote a book in the mid-90s about a book tour I took which was funded by readers and during which I stayed in their homes. In this book, "Bizarro Among the Savages," my driving force was spiritual advice given me by Pat Sajak. It was a true story. To my great dismay, no one from Sajak's office, or those of WoF ever contacted me about it. But then, the greatest spiritual leaders always prefer to remain in the background.