Bizarro Tribute

It's always nice when other cartoon strips pay tribute to Bizarro. Thanks to John for pointing this out.

Impaired Humor

(You can click the picture and it will become un-small.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Shark Week.

From where I sit inside my own head, there is almost no article of clothing more unappealing than the track suit. What is even stranger than the thought of someone thinking they looked good in this kind of color-coordinated baggywear, is the connection, or lack thereof, of the primary groups who wear them.

The fashion track suit is mostly the domain of three distinct groups: the tacky suburban house frau, goombas like "Paulie" from The Sopranos, and hip-hop-happy urban blacks. How did these three groups become members of the same fashion trend?

I don't know when urban blacks began wearing these eyesores en masse, but my guess is that some iconic fadster like Sean "P. Duddy" Combs (Piff Daddy? Pap Doodly? P. Poopy?) decided he could manufacture a lot of them very cheaply in Asia, slapped his name on it, then wore one in public. Once the hoards saw him in one, they had to have one, too. A simple sheep/shepherd equation. Pup Dabby gets rich(er); millions look like walking laundry bags.

The habit among suburban soccer moms grew from a more utilitarian seed, I suspect . They're chasing their crotch fruit around 24/7 and have given up caring about the way they look. Their bodies aren't what they once were and these baggy rainbow parachutes hide that (sort of.) They need something that won't wrinkle when they pass out on the couch from gin and pain pills at the end of the day. It also doesn't hurt that these velour body bags have a built-in contraceptive effect–their husband has to be in a very bad way before he'll come on to woman dressed like Puff Dippy.

Jersey gangster types are perhaps the most puzzling. These are middle-aged, white, often Italian men who are not slaves to hip hop fashion by any means, and not worried about contraception or the shape of their bodies. They are, however, overweight and lacking even a shred of aesthetic aptitude. Perhaps that is where the secret lies. A man in this position is looking for clothing that will both adjust to his constantly morphing waistline and give him plenty of freedom of movement in his daily activities: threatening, extorting, wacking, eating sausage.

Regardless of the reasons, it is odd that one could accurately structure a Jeopardy! question thusly:
"Soccer moms, gangstas, and hit men."
"What are three groups that dress alike?"

In other news, I made another mistake that I would like to share with you. In the title panel for this cartoon, I looked up the sign language alphabet to spell out "Bizarro." Evidently, I looked at the wrong sign for "R" and used the one for "S" instead, a mistake brought to my attention by several readers, so my original title panel spelled out "Bizasso". The original and the corrected version (for future use) are below.

Shell Games

Bizarro is brought to you by Perfect Match Internet Dating Services.

I'm not crazy about this cartoon, I just thought it was kind of cute and amusing so I went with it. I didn't expect much out of it, writing a new gag every day for almost 25 years is daunting so you get used to the idea that not every one is going to be a classic.

But the day after this appeared in papers, I got a smattering of emails about it from various folks who really loved it and wanted to buy a print or use it in their newsletter or post it at their work site, things like that. Just goes to show you can never predict what will resonate.

And likewise, I'm sure there are just as many readers out there who didn't care for it, and are ready to take to the streets, criticizing me for losing my edge. You can't please everyone.

As diligently as I go over these cartoons in the penciling, inking, and coloring stage, I often still miss things. In this case, I only just this second spotted that I missed the black line work that goes with the ground shadow between the turtle's face and the blueprint.

Master Disguise Kit

Bizarro is brought to you today by impractically large beaches.

I haven't been thrilled with all my cartoons from this particular week, but I really like this one. It isn't for everyone and won't end up on a best-selling T-shirt (come to think of it, none of my cartoons have ever been best-selling T-shirts) but it has that certain combo of dry surreal humor and social commentary that I find amusing.

If you don't live in a celebrity soaked environment like NY or LA, you may not know that virtually ALL celebrities who do not want to be noticed in public wear sunglasses and a ball cap. I'm not criticizing, just observing. For all I know there is a Screen Actors Guild bylaw about this that I am unaware of.

I suppose it makes sense in the context of our current fashion mores. If you want to cover the part of your body that most people will recognize, which for celebrities other than J-Lo is the face, you'll need either a brimmed hat or a veil. Veils attract a lot of attention, the opposite of what you're trying to do, and brimmed hats other than ball caps are not common enough in our society to go unnoticed.

Sunglasses hide the eyes, so that's an obvious choice.

I do wonder why more celebs don't opt for a false mustache, however. That can really change your look and, if it is obviously a fake, makes other people uncomfortable and less likely to stare. Wax lips do the same thing. People would either think, that person is wearing wax lips, eek, look away, or that poor person has shiny, plastic-looking deformed lips, I shouldn't stare. This option would work for just about any celebrity other than Angelina Jolie.

Nose glasses are a classic disguise but people now associate those with humor so you'd likely get one of those overly-friendly goobers on a chartered casino trip start kidding around with you. Then your cover is blown and you have to listen to their yammering about how much they enjoyed Tony Orlando in Branson last month. I get this from time to time from people who just think I'm wearing nose glasses. Welcome to my hell.

All By Myself

Just came across this very short clip by London-based animator Michael Schlingmann and wanted to share it.

Surrealism

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hometown News.

Just got back from Tulsa a few hours ago and it's great to be home. A glance at my calendar induced euphoria when I saw that I am not scheduled to leave town again until the end of May. This may be the longest stretch of uninterrupted living in my own home in the past five years.

I'll be posting some photos and stories about my fabled trip to the near-middle of the country in a day or so, with tales of a visit to my old high school and the disturbing memories it conjured. We also had a very interesting time Tuesday in a little Oklahoma town called Guthrie.

Meanwhile, here is this cartoon from last week, which I'm not entirely sure about. I thought it might be fun to have a guy with a live web link on his face, instead of a mustache. But in color, if it's the proper bright blue it doesn't really look like a mustache, and if it's darker it doesn't really look like a link. Maybe it works anyway. Someone wrote to me who really liked it and wants to put it on his web page or in a newsletter or something, so at least one person liked it.

I'll be blogging regularly again now, but this one is short because I have to go watch Lost on ABC. I'm hooked on that show, perhaps because it is like a soap opera written by Salvador Dali. Or maybe it's just the crush I have on Evangeline Lilly.

Homeland Security

Bizarro has been brang to you today by Hometown News.

Sorry I have been remiss in my posting duties for the past few days, I have been visiting the home front in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Had a ding dang devil of a time getting here, we made the mistake of booking our flight on Delta through Atlanta, something we had sworn we would never do again about five years ago when stranded there for 7 hours. Our flight was late leaving NYC because of weather in Atlanta, but we were assured our connecting flight to the Indian Territory would also be delayed and we would have no trouble making it.

Like the serpent in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they lied. Our flight arrived in Atlanta one hour later than scheduled, our connecting flight to Tulsa actually left five minutes before scheduled. Lo and behold, there were no more flights that night, so we had the pleasure of spending the night at an airport hotel without any luggage. Did Delta pay for this inconvenience? Certainly not. They don't pay for delays caused by weather. How do we know our delay was actually caused by weather and not some ineptitude on their part? They assured us it was so.

Next morning, we arose at dawn to grab an early flight to T-Town, I was scheduled to perform at a fund raiser brunch that very morning. We arrived on time and rushed to the baggage claim area. As the bags began to be shat out of the bowels of the airport, we and our fellow passengers could not help but notice they were accompanied by an unusual amount of moisture. All the bags were soaked through, completely, as though submerged in a tank at Sea World overnight. Nearest anyone could tell, the rocket scientists at Delta's Atlanta baggage handling unit had left our luggage out in the rain all night long.

CHNW and I arrived at the brunch not wearing the clothes we had brought for the occasion, as it was dripping wet, but in the crumbled comfy crap we had worn for the flight. Joy.

Our troubles ended here, fortunately. The fund raiser was wonderful, everyone was nice as cherry pie, the audience was happy and tweaked on mimosas, and the show went great. After, we went to my parents house and dumped all out clothes into the dryer. Thankfully, we didn't have any "dry clean only" clothing in our suitcases or Delta would be buying us some new clothes. (Yes, I'm sure it's real easy file that claim and receive compensation.)

I began the show Saturday morning with the story of my travel woes, accompanied by a huge graphic project on the wall, "DELTA SUCKS!"

Today I visited my old high school and spoke to a few hundred kids in the auditorium. I mostly passed on wisdom such as, "it's true, you will never need algebra," and "the planet will no longer be suitable for human inhabitation in the very near future, so don't worry about those grades." They're good kids and I have no doubt that many will manage to stay out of jail for a good long time.

From there, I swung by my niece's elementary school on the other end of town to tell the first and second grade classes to "just say no to drugs." Many seemed to take my advice to heart, others looked a little too glassy-eyed to understand what I was saying.

I will likely not post again until Thursday morning. Thanks for your readership, see you then.
Reporting live from The Coffee House on Cherry Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma, this is
Danny "Chuckwagon" Piraro