Thursday, February 17, 2011

NEW BLOG SITE







I've moved this blog to a new site: http://www.bizarro.com/

It's got the entire archive and all my new posts will be there with the same smooth, chocolately goodness. Please have a visit, sign up, click the RSS for it, or whatever it is you do when you do that thing.

Thanks, see you there!
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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

4 for Fun

Bizarro is brought to you today by Walking Dead.

There is a change coming to this semi-daily blog, but it will be a change for the better and faithful readers will not be inconvenienced. I'm moving it over to Wordpress to be part of a corral of King Features blogs or something like that. I'm not sure why, really, but my buddies at KF convinced me to do it so it's moving soon. You'll be able to find it easily and I'll leave a link to it here, so don't worry about it. More later.

This first cartoon threw some readers for a loop, as my mother often says. "That really threw me for a loop!" she'd say about this thing or that. Lots of things threw mom for a loop over the years, but she's none the worse for wear, thanks for asking. The thing about this cartoon, of course, is that your brain sees what it expects to see instead of what's really there. The fun part is looking carefully, discovering the joke, then laughing at the trick your brain played on you. Proofreaders and editors will get this joke immediately and that's just one of the many reasons that people in those professions do not have as much fun as the rest of us. Don't hate them, pity them.

Spell "pharmacy" wrong and it conjures up a whole humorous picture. Writing cartoons is just that simple. Try it yourself, but until you're feeling comfortable with it, wear a helmet and protective padding. Can't be too careful these days what with the health care crisis in America.

I'm not a senior citizen yet, I think you have to be 65 or something, so I'm wondering if I'm a sophomore or a junior. What are the age limits? Are people in their twenties Freshman? If so, what are children? Besides a noisy nuisance that are lucky they're cute.

Everyone has had the "Would-you-like-me-to-take-that-for-you-so-you-can-be-in-it?" experience. Here's a true story that happened to me: A group of about six friends and I went to a restaurant for lunch one day to celebrate a birthday. Upon exiting, one of us said, "let's take a picture." So we lined up in front of the restaurant and were about to shoot when another person came out of the restaurant and said, "Would you like me to take that for you so you can be in it?" The photographer agreed, gave him the camera and joined the rest of us. As he was about to shoot, a woman came out of the restaurant and said to him, "Would you like me to take that for you so you can be in it?" He shrugged, agreed, handed her the camera and promptly walked off down the street.

The humor was in the look on the second Good Samaritan's face.

If you'd like to view any of these cartoons on groovy products, click the names below:
Prefectionist
Farmacy
Senior Center
Painting
Burqa Photo
Senior Moment

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Astronaut

I laughed.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Comedy Show!

















Once again, you in the San Francisco Bay Area have a chance to see a comedy genius at work and help him pay his February rent!

Will Franken Announces:
"The Grand Opening Of A New Baby" (new one-man show)
Saturday, February 19th,
9pm
The Purple Onion
140 Columbus Avenue, SF
$20

Tix available here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/154473

Be there or live a life without joy!
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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Read This Book




















I read a new novel recently that I highly recommend. It's the first novel by the most exciting writer I've read in a long while, Benjamin Hale. I happened to meet him at a literary event in NYC recently and he was kind enough to give me an advance copy of his first novel, the cover of which is pictured above. I won't say much about it other than that I was blown away, couldn't put it down, didn't want it to end, can't wait for his next book, and I wanted to have his children. That last impulse has subsided some but I'm still looking forward to his next book.

Check it out here.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Cat Diary











(Click the word "click" for a larger image!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Valentine Wishes.

I don't often do sequential jokes but here is one now. Just look a couple of inches above where you are looking now. I don't have a lot to say about it, so let's talk about something else.

Did you ever get one of those emails that has been going around for ten years or so about the cat and dog diary? I've gotten it many times over the years, it's one of those email jokes that just goes around and around. Well, the fun thing is that it started with one of my cartoons.

I wrote "Finding the Cat's Diary" in 1995 and sometime shortly after, people began altering and adding to it to create the email joke. It's now become something of a meme, which I must admit I think is kind of cool. It doesn't mean fame or fortune – I don't get royalties on its use or even credited for the original idea – it just means that I created something that got into people's heads enough that it was passed virally to enough folks that it became generally well known. Creative people like that kind of thing.

If you Google "pet diary" or "cat diary," you'll come across dozens of sites that post variations of this theme, featuring diaries by a cat and a dog, most of which start with a few lines from this cartoon. A guy named Allen Roland even took credit for writing it on a Salon.com blog. Kind of lame. It has ended up on some products, too, for which I could likely sue. Hmmm.

I'm also proud of it because I think it's a particularly good cartoon. Hope you like it, too. If you don't, just keep it to yourself. Like most people outside of politics, I'm capable of both pride and hurt feelings.

Get groovy schwag with these cartoons on them here:
Cat Diary
Remote Control

Friday, February 11, 2011

Lustige Zeichnung

Bizarro is brought to you today by Inspirational Art.

If you're as big a fan of ruthless dictator emoticons as I am, you'll love this cartoon. It features a Hitler emoticon. Actually, I've never seen a Hitler emoticon before my friend and partner, Wayno, sent this gag idea to me. To hear him tell it, his wife thought up the emoticon and he figured out a way to make a joke out of it. Then I drew it. I'm the blue-collar in this equation. Here's Wayno's story about it, which, if it differs from mine at all is just him lying again.

Speaking of attempted genocide, let's take a cartoon visit to The South. Somebody wrote to me and said that in Mississippi, people don't say "y'all." I admit I've never been to Mississippi, but I was raised in The South and have traveled a bit there and have never come across a state where they didn't say it, so I'm going with my original premise. If you've ever lived in Mississippi, let me know the truth. History demands it.

I'm off to wrestle with the tedious details of my job as the greatest cartoonist currently living in my building. Aufwiedersehen, y'all.

Want these cartoons on fine products of a wide assortment? Click below...
Hitler Emoticon
Y'all Turn

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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Cold Enough

Bizarro is brought to you by My Last Stop.

How's everyone holding up this winter? In most of the U.S. we're having record cold and snow. Brrrrrr! (That's the sound a human makes when it is cold.) CHNW and I almost moved to Maui last year but decided we were not quite ready to leave NYC. Now we're beginning to question that decision. We both look better in bikinis than in snowsuits.

Speaking of marriage, when CHNW and I announced to her parents we were getting married their response was, "Bad idea. Bad idea." Good thing I didn't ask in the traditional way. In fairness, I should mention that they now think it was a good enough idea.

On this cartoon about 4-D TV, I got a couple of emails from science types explaining to me that smell is not a dimension. Fair enough, but that's why I became a cartoonist instead of a science textbook author. I can just make crap up about anything I want and let the chips fall where they may. And there is quite a trail of misleading chips in my wake, cowboy, let me tell you.

Here's a cartoon about that person (or people) in your family that give you gifts that they think are perfect for you but could not be further off base. I once mentioned to my Aunt Sharon that I liked "kitsch art" and for my next birthday she sent me some ceramic tiles with food printed on them, the sort you're supposed to hang in your kitchen. True story. I wouldn't tell this story if there was any chance of hurting Aunt Sharon's feelings, but she's in solitary confinement now with no access to the Internet, so it's safe.

Hope you're warm and well-gifted today.

For these cartoons on groovy schwag, click below:
Marriage
4-D TV
Bunny

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Monday, February 7, 2011

Bowl Wrapup

(You can find this cartoon on fine products here.)


Bizarro is brought to you today by
Just My Luck.

A quick Monday morning update for you before I commence to feverishly inking cartoons in an attempt to reduce the amount of time by which I am late on my deadline this week.

Last night's Super Bowl was a good game and the correct team won. Sorry to all my Pittsburgh readers, I love your city and people (honestly, I've visited many times and say nothing but nice things about PBgh) and I even like Mike Tomlin, the Steeler's coach and Terry Bradshaw, the Steeler's patron saint. But the last thing your current quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger needs is another Super Bowl ring. At least not until he stops abusing women. Some of you might say, "But Dan, Ben was acquitted. What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty?'" to which I would say, "You're thinking of the U.S. justice system. This is my personal blog and I'm pretty convinced Big Ben is scum."

So congratulations to the fine folks of Green Bay Wisconsin for getting to have a big parade for the guys who won the trophy for you even though none of them are from there or would live there if they were not being paid millions of dollars to do so. And congratulations to the fine folks of Pittsburgh for not having to put up with an expensive and messy parade. It really screws with traffic.

I think the halftime show was also worth commenting on. When I heard that something called "The Black Guy Pees" was performing, I feared another "wardrobe malfunction" catastrophe like a few years back. This country is still reeling from the moral consequences of a nipple being shown on television for .5 seconds and I'm not sure we could withstand another one. (If god had meant for people to be showing their filthy parts on television, we would have been born with TV cameras facing our pee pee place.) But as it turned out, this year's show was just four space people singing while quite a lot of batteries danced around the field. If the lights of your home flickered last night, that's likely why.

Even if you didn't watch the game and think football is dumb, I hope you enjoyed this post-game wrap up.
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Sunday, February 6, 2011

Super Things











(If you are the person who wants to see this cartoon bigger, click the second cactus from the left. If you want to see the cartoon on fine products of many sorts, click these blue words!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Sacred Second Amendment.

Today is the day of The Super Bowl, the most watched TV event in American history, even more than the Civil War. Maybe you have a bulbous I.Q. and are not into sports, but for the rest of us, here is why you should watch it.

1. It's super, it says so right in the name. Our American legal system is the best in the world, even better than the Old Testament's, and we would not let them say "super" if it wasn't true.

2. It has "bowl" in the name, too, and good things come in bowls. Cereal, pudding, jello, chili, soup, cherries, goldfish. You never hear of anything bad coming in a bowl. Yak dung? Wrestler spit? Soiled undergarments? No.

3. Where else can you watch millionaires beat on each other? If you ever hear of a show where CEOs, politicians and stockbrokers are beating the crap out of each other in public, let me know because I'm in! Until then, I'll take the Super Bowl.

4. Ben Roethlisberger is the head guy on one of the teams and has been accused twice in one year of raping young women. Wouldn't it be fun to see him lose?
4.1. If he wins, though, it would be a serious bummer because I really hate him, even though I love the city of Pittsburgh and even the Steelers if he was not on the team.

5. People say the commercials are really great, but I think those people are mostly confusing the term "really great" for "very expensive and intentionally outrageous." Can anything be truly great now that Michael Jackson is dead? Seriously.

That's my TV recommendation for today. Pop back by tomorrow when I'll tell you why you should start watching the game show, "Wipeout".

In closing, here is another installment of Bizarro Readers' Pets. The photos have just been flooding in, if two pictures are a flood. This one features Schultzie, age 14 and was sent in by Cindy. The cartoon is from the mid-eighties, so old that I can't even find it in my archives.

Friday, February 4, 2011

More Snake!

Snakemommy wrote back and provided me with this scintillating video of Louise the Burmese Python jumping through a hoop, just like in the cartoon. If you missed the beginning of this story, check out my previous post! Thanks, Snakemommy!



She also reminded me that this was Louise's second appearance on my blog. Here is the first.

Snake


















I'll be posting some new cartoons tomorrow but for today I offer you this photo which just came in from a reader who calls herself Snakesmommy. This is her pet python, Louise, and she is shown here enjoying a Bizarro cartoon about a trained snake act in the circus. The cartoon appears in "The Best of Bizarro" and "Life is Strange and So Are You, a Bizarro Sunday Treasury" is featured in the background. I have no background info on the blue ring.

If you'd like to send me photos of your pets with Bizarro cartoons, please do so. Who's going to stop you and why should they try? It's really none of their business.

To see this cartoon up bigger, click on the left breast pocket of the animal trainer.













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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Crazy Couch

Bizarro is brought to you today by Dog Walker.

Have you ever been up sh*t creek without a paddle? (I cleverly added the * to that word so that it would be family friendly. Everyone knows that children are no good at Wheel of Fortune.)

Of course you have, we all have. And the message of this cartoon is to pay more attention to your paddle than to your wardrobe. Of course, if you're up sh*t creek without a paddle, this advice is useless. And if you're out canoeing in one of those smiley face shirts, you deserve whatever you get because everybody hates those things. Unless you're wearing it ironically, in which case you probably deserve to be visited by hillbillies, ala Deliverance. (Wow, that was bitter. I didn't know until I typed this how much pent up aggression I have toward ironic shirts.)

This cartoon about light reading is a bit of nonsense with no particular message. Unless it would be that if you find yourself bored enough to read the ends of light bulbs over and over, it's probably time to quit your job, leave your wife, and go on a violent odyssey of some sort, ala Going Native, by Stephen Wright. (One of my favorite books, but not written by the Steven Wright who is a stand-up comedian and not funny.)

As long as we're discussing my damaged psyche, let's take a quick visit to Sigmund's Couch. I quite like this old cartoon from 1997, written and drawn two years after my divorce and the most therapy-intensive period of my life. Notice you can read "ID" on the sign above the door to rhyme with "bid," which is a Freudian term! Hahahahahahah! Also notice that back then I was often drawing the cartoon outside the borders. I did it because I liked it, I stopped doing it for reasons unknown. Probably laziness.

Let's hear it from all those readers who have enjoyed psychotherapy at some point in their lives. I only go when I'm really troubled, but I have to admit I love it. Something so soothing about talking about myself for 45 minutes without fear of interruption.

If you'd like to see these cartoons on various fine tidbits of merchandise, just click the 'toon. It's fun and painless!

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Hate Humor?

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Elephant Boy.

It's been hate mail week here at Bizarro International Headquarters. I got a few letters on each of the first two comics posted here.

Several people thought that the Elephant Snowman cartoon was insensitive to people suffering from deformities and found it incomprehensible that I made fun of them in this way. I politely explained that I was not making fun of deformities, but simply finding a funny way to lampoon a famous line from a movie, David Lynch's The Elephant Man. It was suggested in strong terms that I apologize to all of the people who suffer from so-called "Elephantitis" (Proteus syndrome) and after a little research I found that there are about 100 such people living in the world today. If any of them are readers of Bizarro, I hope they understood the cartoon the way it was intended. I'm kind of guessing there aren't any but you can never be too careful.

A side note: I did not receive complaints on either of these two cartoons on the same subject. One. The other.

I thought the hate mail fest was over, but then I got a couple of letters about this spoof of the La-Z-Boy recliner. Apparently people who are related to people suffering from mental disorders, like schizophrenia, object to the term "crazy." That makes sense, I suppose, but I would contend that this is not a joke that perpetuates the poor treatment of those with mental illnesses, it's just a silly pun on "lazy". As with the PC language movement in general, I don't believe changing what people call people does much to change the way they react to them. I think it's a chicken-or-the-egg situation: the term "negro" was polite until bigots used it with enough frequency that it became a slur. "Black" wasn't derogatory when African-Americans chose it for themselves in the 1960s, it became derogatory because it has been standard for decades and bigotry is still common. Eventually, "African-American" will be thought of as derogatory as well. Etc., etc., and on and on. A large percentage of us are jerks, no matter what language we are taught to use.

For the record, I'm not a jerk. I don't knowingly discriminate against people for things that are beyond their control like appearance, ethnicity, mental or physical disabilities, sexual orientation, height, etc. I often discriminate against people for their beliefs and behavior, however. I'm a discriminating discriminator.

Looking for a smooth segue? How could you ask for a smoother one than from that last discussion to this cartoon about gay horses? I'm so glad that our government has finally joined the 21st century and repealed the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. If someone is willing to wield a gun to defend me I don't give a damn what turns them on. Of course, it won't end discrimination, but it's a baby step in the right direction.

In summary:
I apologize to victims of Proteus syndrome if my joke bothered you.
I apologize to the mentally impaired and their loved ones if my joke bothered them.
I'm a bigot toward bigots and I don't apologize.
And while I'm at it, it occurs to me that this post wasn't very funny so I apologize for that, too.

So very, very sorry for so, so much.

If you'd like to peruse many fine products with the above cartoons emblazoned thereupon, click the cartoon.

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San Fran Comedy

A good friend of mine and a damn funny/smart comedian, Brian Malow, is doing a show at the San Francisco Punch Line next week, you should go see it if you're in the area. He kills, as they say in the business.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Punch Line Comedy Club, San Francisco
Tickets can be got here for less than the cost of a cheap Halloween wig.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Kindergarten Lesson
















A brilliant, funny, short article by Bill Maher can be found by clicking this link.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Wind Spitting











(To see these cartoons bigger, click them. To find this McDonalds cartoon on fine merch, click here.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by
Childhood Dreams.

Today we have two cartoons about clowns. One from now and one from 1997.

I'm one of those people who think that clowns are creepy as hell. I've never found graphic representations or photos of clowns creepy, just the live version, the person dressed like a psycho getting in your face and trying to make you laugh. Even as a child I instinctively did not trust people in costumes. Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, clowns, you name it. I couldn't help but think that if they meant me no harm they would not be concealing their identity. It's as simple as that.

Ronald McDonald is perhaps the most malevolent clown of all. The fact that the sort of worldwide cruelty and destruction that the McDonald's corporation is responsible for is represented by a clown is like something from a horror movie. They guy owns thousands of things called slaughter houses, for one thing. "Slaughter" isn't a funny word. I wont' go into a lot of detail, but the animal cruelty, environmental destruction and international health crises that are wrought by cheap hamburgers and chicken parts is a holocaust. I know it's the way the world works and it will not likely ever change, I'm just saying it sends chills down my spine.

I drew the McDonalds cartoon shortly after CHNW and I spent the night in an emergency room when she was hit by a NYC cab. Hospital ERs are not fun to draw because they are either incredibly spare and dull, like the doorway I've drawn here, or incredibly complex, like the rest of the rooms full of gadgets and equipment. It's a no-win for an artist.










"Fopah the Clown" is a weird little story about politically correct language. I don't remember why I wrote it or what I was thinking, but I've never been a fan of PC language in general. After seeing it evolve over the past 30+ years, I think it is a great way to act like we're doing something to end discrimination without really doing anything. Seems to be little more than lip service.

I could be wrong and probably am. I'm just one man spitting into the wind on a blog, as usual. Please come back and watch me spit some more next week.

Hope the rest of your weekend is like this.

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Friday, January 28, 2011

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!

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Spider Person

Bizarro is brought to you today by Heavy Traffic.

I've never held a tarantula, but I used to see them in the wild every now and then when I lived in Oklahoma and Texas. The first time I ever saw one was in 1963 when my dad came home from the golf course with one in a paper bag. He and his golfing buddies had seen it on the course and coaxed it into a small paper bag, like the kind they give you when you buy a pack of gum. (Dad had no idea at the time that they could jump many feet into the air.) He brought it home, called the kids out into the front yard and let it go. My sisters screamed, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and wanted to keep it. Apparently we were a typical American family right off of a sit-com from the period, except that we didn't have a black maid. No idea what happened to the tarantula after that, my memory isn't what it used to be. (cough, cough, wheeze, creak)

I'm not all that happy with the bulldog-man's line here but it was the best I could come up with when I drew it. Now I think, "What's your tarantula's name?" would have been funnier.

Here's a guy who only wants to be awakened for food, thus assuring him a long nap. They don't serve food on airplanes anymore, unless the flight is overseas (and even then you may not be willing to call what they serve "food") or if you're up front in Snooty Class. I'd like to suggest that right now, all of us who are relegated to flying coach send out very bad vibes to everyone who flies First Class. Just take a moment to close your eyes and hate them and wish them ill fortune. It won't bother them in the least and they'll never even know we did it, but it might make us feel better.

I admit that there have been a ton of eye doctor jokes with funny messages in the eye chart. I've done a few myself. But something about this one made me feel it was different enough to warrant dusting off the motif again so here it is. All he wants is a laugh. Let's give him one now, shall we? Just throw your head back and laugh like a psychotic sausage vendor.

Now, don't you feel better?

By the way, to buy these cartoons on products, just click the cartoon!!!

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Electric Jesus















For a larger view, click the image.


I had a special request from a beloved reader for this cartoon, so here it is. It's never been published in the U.S. but appeared in some Scandinavian magazines with Bizarro a few years back. Some people find it crass, but it is merely an observation. If Jesus of Nazareth had died in an electric chair, millions of you readers would be wearing tiny gold chair earrings right now.

Hope you enjoy, another post and more cartoons to come later today.

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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Punny












(To see this cartoon in all its large, detailed glory, click the caveman's over-hanging brow.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Reader Appreciation.

Here is number 12 in my occasional series of "Sunday Punnies." If you missed the first 11, click here.

The deal is that readers send me their puns and I use some of them for these kinds of cartoons. If you've got a pun that you think might be good, post it in the comments section of this blog or email it to me. My email address can be found on Bizarro.com. Please don't abuse it, its feelings get hurt rather easily.

Rules and notable things:
1. You get no compensation other than the delirious thrill of seeing your idea in the funnies.
2. Tell me what name you want me to sign it with if I pick your pun.
3. It has to be original. Don't be sending me no dang thang you heard at the beauty parlor or on the Interwebs.
4. I will not post the puns that people leave in the comments section, so don't expect to see them listed there and don't be afraid to leave me your name or email or whatever. I'm good at keeping secrets.
5. If you are Joe Flacco, don't bother leaving a pun, I won't use it. You and your Baltimore Ravens knocked the Kansas City Chiefs out of the playoffs and upset my dad.

That's about it. Any time you have a couple minutes to spare and want to LOL outloud, I hope you'll drop by this blog. I post 3 or 4 times a week and feature new cartoons, old ones, odd videos, funny pictures of me and my clan, and peculiar musings from the inner recesses of my brain goo. Thanks for stopping by.

To see some of the past Sunday Punnies, click here. For real this time.

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Thoughts

Bizarro is brought to you today by Free Thinkers.

I've been remiss in my posting this week so here's a batch of cartoons to catch us up. Do we have to discuss them all in detail? I'm not convinced we do.

The fly cartoon that kicks off today's show was very popular with readers according to emails and comments I've received. What can we deduce from this? That my readers are into poop jokes. It makes a cartoonist proud.

Here's a very weird and slightly disturbing cartoon about a pregnant woman. What does it mean? Why does her uterus have a voice mail system? I'd be happy to tell you if I knew.






As a result of many emails from various folks, I do know that this cartoon about a seeing-eye dog for the colorblind is funny albeit totally impossible. Dogs don't see color the way humans do so they would be pretty useless at this task. That's just one of the many reasons this is a cartoon and not an illustration in a medical textbook. Don't take these things so seriously, kids.

Static electricity is always funny, especially when it has to do with embarrassing undergarments. Enough said.









Years ago I had an obese doctor who smoked in the office between seeing patients. You could see him down the hall in his office puffing away. I always thought it was funny. You don't have to actually practice good advice to give it. That's the lesson I hope you take away from this cartoon.

Not that my cartoons are about teaching, they're not. In fact, don't follow any advice I give in a cartoon, I don't want to be responsible for your life. If you can read a cartoon, you have a brain. Learn to use it responsibly and things will go better for you. Most of my readers are already independent thinkers so I realize I'm preaching to the choir. I'm just talking to that one guy somewhere who is taping my cartoons to his walls every day, studying them, trying to spot patterns and messages, devising a path by which to live his life, running a piece of red yarn from one pushpin to another creating a giant mess that will later mystify detectives when they are investigating his gruesome crimes. Yes, you know who you are. Stop it.
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Conway

A classic comedy sketch from a true genius, Tim Conway.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Pooh Talk












(For a big, whopping view of this cartoon, click on Pooh's honey pot.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Human Heart.

I don't normally post my Sunday cartoons until later in the week, but this one was so popular that I decided to chuck it up on the Interwebs a bit sooner. This was a collaborative effort between my buddy, Cliff, and I . He suggested the pun, "Edgar Allan Pooh," and I came up with a way to portray it.

My chosen vehicle, of course, is from Edgar Allan Poe's story, The Tell-Tale Heart, in which the narrator kills his roommate because his gooey eye creeps him out and buries him beneath the floorboards of his house. When the cops come over to chat with him about the disappearance of his roomie, he arrogantly invites them in to sit down just above the hidden body, believing he is so clever he can never be caught. He clearly had not seen a single episode of CSI, where they can catch you because you left behind a mite from your eyelash. (Sidenote: If his roommate had been CSI's David Caruso, I could totally understand his behavior. That guy creeps me out more than a hairy, talking mole.)

SPOILER: Anyway, he starts to go nuts (like he wasn't already) and thinks he hears the corpse's heart beating beneath the floor. He thinks the cops can hear it, too, and confesses. I've often wondered how he could think he was so clever in hiding his crime when the thing would begin to stink to high heaven in a day or so but whatever.

The truth is that something very similar to this cartoon actually happened in A. A. Milne's original manuscript for The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. Pooh was quite naturally creeped out by Eeyore's nailed-on tail and becomes obsessed with it. In a fit of hyperactivity brought on by a weekend honey binge, Pooh caves in Eeyore's head with the honey jar and buries him beneath the floorboards.

Believing this would damage the book's "cute quotient," editors removed this episode from the final book.

Video Fun

I'll post a regular entry tomorrow, but for today I wanted to share this video which gave me a big chuckle.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Big

Bizarro is brought to you today by Fairy Tales.

My weekend post is late, I'm sorry for the three or four of you who wait for these things. For the rest of you who just happen by now and then, ignore everything up to this point.

It is well documented on this blog how I feel about reality TV. I don't just think it is awful, I think it is ruining the world in the way that Baptists thought rock and roll was ruining the world in the 50s and Sarah Palin thinks that intellect and reason are ruining the world today.

But as they say in Brooklyn, whatayagonnado? As long as humans run the world we can expect a never-ending wave a classy quality.

Here's a little cartoon about a couple of mosquitoes. I'd like to apologize to my readers whose lives really do suck and this cartoon was but another painful reminder. You see, to a mosquito, sucking is a good thing. Whether you like or dislike this cartoon, take it up with my bodyguard, Big Rey, who thought it up. I didn't want to print it, but I hate to see a grown man cry. Especially one who has grown to the size of Big Rey and is wearing a shoulder holster. It's heartbreaking.










Now we come to my version of a famous fairy tale. I enjoy the visual and the gag well enough, but what really strikes me is the sexual undertones. If that's the old woman who lived in the shoe with so many children she didn't know what to do, and that's their father and he's 8-stories tall, how did they manage to...? You know.

To make this lurid illustration larger, click Lover Boy's little toe.

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Dancing


I am a huge fan of Tom the Dancing Bug and no fan of political correctness, so it seems fitting that I share this week's brilliant TDB with you. Click the image for greater enlargingmentation.

To read the TDB blog, click the offensive word in this sentence: Sometimes I enjoy a cracker with my soup.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Confusion

Bizarro is brought to you today by Nothing.

I got a couple of comments from readers who didn't quite get this headache gag. While I fully understand how a person might not understand it, I'm not sure how to explain it. I think it is one of those oddball gags that you either find amusing or you don't. There is no secret to it that you're not seeing, it's just that this guy has a headache and his wife and dog are part of the equation. If you're still out to sea, get married, sit around with your spouse for 10 or 20 years then look at the cartoon again.*

I'd like to say this about the "Backwards Caps" cartoon: I hate backwards caps. Yes, perhaps "hate" is a strong word for how one could feel about a particular fashion, you're right. Okay, I think it is dumb. A baseball cap is designed with a bill to protect your eyes from the sun, not the back of your neck. It's the entire point of its existence. It is like wearing shoes on your hands. However, if you were the only person to wear it backwards, then you're probably just quirky and individual and I admire that. But if you started doing it just because everyone else is, you're just being a sheep. If, on the other hand, you feel confident that you like the way it looks independently and you'd wear it that way even if you had never seen anyone else in the world do it and tourists were asking to take a picture with you because you looked so silly, then it would be wrong for you NOT to wear it backwards just because it was a fad. And if you find that you're just more comfortable looking the same as everyone else, own it, girl, and don't change a thing. There is also no reason in the world why you should care about what I think of your hat stylings.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was wearing what I call "old man hats" a few years before they caught on with youngsters and now they have become a symbol of shallow hipsterism. But I refuse to give it up because I liked them before they became a fad and I still like them. Again, no reason at all you should care.

I hope this has been sufficiently confusing so that you now don't know what the hell to do with your baseball cap. Life is like that and we've all learned a valuable lesson.

And here, to round out our confusion, is a cartoon from 1997 that even I don't understand. I have no idea why it occurred to me or why I thought it was funny but it did and I did and I still do. Figure this one out for yourself, you're on your own.


*I'd like to mention that this cartoon in no way reflects my own marriage to CHNW. We have a ball virtually every day and she gets more adorable and interesting year by year.**

** Yes, she is a regular reader of this blog.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Prepared


Bizarro is brought to you today by Preparedness.

If your head and eyes are not frozen solid in a single position, move them just an inch or so to the left and see the cartoon there. This will increase your understanding of my next sentence. People liked it.

Sometimes simple ideas work best and this one is a perfect example. I got lots of emails from readers who really liked the "interest-free checking" cartoon. It was the result of a collaboration with my buddy, Andy Cowan, who is a former writer for "Seinfeld". (He was responsible for their most famous episode, in which Kramer is elected Supreme Dictator for Life of all of North and South America, then has the rest of the cast executed. Rent it if you haven't seen it.)

Our next offering today is in the field of locomotive laziness. I think we can agree that the Segway scooter is an odd invention. On a scientific level, it represents an amazing breakthrough in gyroscopic technology as regards ambulation without moving your legs. God forbid we should burn one calorie more than is necessary, that would be unAmerican. But, like trans-gender immigrants, it has had trouble fitting into American society. Segways are not powerful or safe enough to be in traffic and most communities consider them too dangerous to allow on sidewalks, so they're pretty much confined to open fields and empty parking lots.

People with absolutely no sense of vanity occasionally use them for security purposes at malls or airports, but what was once predicted to be the biggest thing since indoor plumbing has mostly become an expensive novelty. I have no compunction about looking ridiculous, so I ride these things any time I can hijack one. I don't own one, of course, but they're fun to buzz around on when you can get hold of one. I kind of feel sorry for them, like trans-gender immigrants.

For some reason, the Interest-Free Checking gag reminded me of an old favorite of mine from 1997, so here it is. Again, I like the simplicity of it. I hope you do, too.

We're expecting another big snow storm tomorrow, so I've got to get to the gun store today and stock up on weapons and ammo in case there is a run on supplies at the corner food shop. Good Americans can never be too prepared.


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