Crash Talk

Bizarro is brought to you today by Cops on Break.

Lately I've been depending on my good friend and talented colleague, Wayno, to help me with cartoons. My schedule has been a mess lately, as I've mentioned here previously, and without some writing help I'd be a basket case. CHNW and I swapped houses with some friends in Maui a few weeks back (which had been planned before I knew just how busy my schedule was going to be), then my daughter got married in Texas*, then I had a stand-up gig and a business meeting in Los Angeles. All told, I was home for just three days of the past four weeks. Fun and exciting, but grueling. By far, the worst thing about syndicated cartooning is having to work 365 days a year for years on end – over 25 for me so far.

Here are a couple of Wayno's gags from the past week. I like the Starbucks one because I don't like Starbuck's coffee – it tastes like burnt grill scrapings to me – but I drink it when there is nothing else available. I fully recognize the insanity of drinking something you hate just because it is all you can find, but the need for a strong, hot drink in the morning trumps my tastebud's preferences. I also suspect that any company as large as Starbuck's can't be doing the planet any favors, but I could be wrong about that. When it comes to corporations, I say, "guilty until proven innocent."

This next joke is an obvious pun which may have even been done before but I like the angle and the visual. "Crash," as an expression meaning "to sleep," probably came from the hardcore drug culture reference to coming down hard from a high. It amuses me that even mainstream America has embraced this word to mean sleeping in general. A middle-aged fundamentalist preacher and his wife visiting Branson, Missouri would think nothing of saying "we were so tired we went back to our hotel and crashed."

That's not to say that middle-aged fundamentalist preachers aren't using hardcore drugs, of course, but you get the idea.

*This photo was taken by a super talented photographer you can find here.

Puppies and Chickens

(For a larger, more better image of bigness to view, click the cartoon)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Good Name for a Band.

Dear faithful reader, thank you for your patience. I've been out of town for all but three days of the past four weeks and it's been difficult keeping up. As I look at the mounting pile of missed deadlines and cascading unanswered emails, I am experiencing fits of depression and feelings of hopelessness. These are mitigated with fantasies of setting fire to my apartment and moving to Tahiti, however, so that keeps me going.

Here are a couple of nice Sunday cartoons that ran in the past few weeks. I like both of these concepts and the art, as well. I like the idea of a werepuppy as opposed to a werewolf. Come to think of it, an excellent children's cartoon show might be a baby who is bitten by a werewolf and becomes a werepuppy every full moon. Oh, the shenanigans he/she could get into.










I've long been a fan of both birds and dogs, so combining them in one drawing was fun for me. One of the things I love so much about Hawaii is that the islands are populated with feral chickens. Descendants of escaped livestock, these kooky critters have thrived for generations, so the jungles and parks are full of them. When viewed objectively, they are among the most visually exciting birds in the world, in my opinion. And they are surprisingly smart.

Back to the grindstone for me. If you've emailed me recently and I haven't answered, please be patient. I badly need an assistant, wish I could afford one. I've used interns from time to time but they're too transient and take too much time to train.

Airport Monkey Business

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hair at First Sight.

This cartoon was inspired by the laughable system of security that we have adopted at U.S. airports since 9/11. I've long thought that it was designed primarily to create an "appearance" of safety so as to calm travelers and a couple of airline pilots I've spoken to in recent years confirmed that. A couple of weeks ago, while a small bottle of distilled water that I was carrying to keep my cigars humidified was confiscated by security, the guy who put a car bomb in Times Square was allowed to board a plane unmolested. He was on the No Fly List and was sought by every law enforcement agency in the free world, but at least he didn't have a bottle of water.

If you fly as much as I do, you cannot help but just shake your head at the idiotic structure of the T.S.A. I'm convinced that the only reason a plane hasn't been victimized since 9/11 is because nobody with any brains has tried very hard. One of the pilots I referenced above told me they consider T.S.A. to stand for "thousands standing around."

On to lighter subjects, here's a look at the old "a million monkeys typing" theory. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed finishing it and moving to the couch for a nap.

Wrong Size Sandwich

(click the images to see them LARGE)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Liza Minelli.

Here's another post with a two-fer, to make up some ground on the cartoons I didn't post while away. I really like cartoons like "Clown Mistakes," ones that are outside the usual formula of one-panel comics. More like a chart or diagram than a scene, my hero, B. Kliban was a genius at this kind of joke and the first person I ever saw employ this style.

Lots of readers really loved the sandwich joke, one even said it was the "best Bizarro ever." Normally I'd be happy about such a compliment, but I confess I didn't write this joke. It was given to me by my colleague, Wayno, who was kind enough to help me get ahead while trying to prepare for my lengthy trip away. Several of the jokes that printed last week and this were by Wayno. You can see them all on his blog. Many thanks, amigo!

Still catching up, must run.

Helium Beards

Bizarro is brought to you today by My New Mustache.

Since I'm way behind on posting cartoons, I'll post a couple each day until I'm caught up. I like both of these a lot, so I wanted to share them with you even though they appeared in the paper a couple of weeks ago.

Seriously, have you ever heard someone who has been breathing helium scream in pain? Neither have I, but I think it would be one of those funny/tragic moments, like when your grandmother is knocked out of her wheelchair by your mom's runaway motorcycle.

The penguin idea came to me after seeing some old Muslim dudes who live in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. They die their beards bright red, I have no idea why but I'm guessing it identifies them as belonging to a certain sect. There's a mosque a few blocks away where they hang out. I've never asked them about the beard color, I just enjoy it.

My Comeback Blog

Bizarro is brought to you by my long absence. Thanks for your patience and all of the notes and comments expressing a wish for my return to daily blogging. I've been away from home for three weeks, a rarity for me, partly on holiday in Hawaii and partly in Austin, Texas for my daughter's wedding. It was a terrific trip all around.

I'll post some holiday pics in the coming days or week, if I can get them downloaded and sorted and all that. Just the good/funny/weird ones. I don't want to subject you to boring personal moments or anything.

Speaking of boring personal moments, here are a couple of nice pics of my two daughters and me at the wedding. I'm the dark guy on the right who just got back from two weeks in Hawaii. The one in the light dress is Krapuzar, my eldest and the new bride, the one in the disgraceful, upstage-your-sister-at-her-own-wedding red dress is Krelspeth, the youngest. The "K2" that regularly appears in my cartoons stands for them.

















And here, as proof that I was indeed in Hawaii, is a picture of me underwater at a Maui beach.

By the way, a handful of readers wrote to me asking what the above cartoon meant. If you were similarly confused, if you rearrange the letters in each word of the speaker's balloon, you get "There is no god." Hence the atheist anagram.

More shenanigans tomorrow!

Earth Wind Fire and Water

Bizarro is brought to you today by Maui Dude.

This is my last day in Maui, CHNW and I are taking an overnight plane to Austin, Texas where we will visit my daughters and attend the wedding of the elder one on Saturday. This is my first shot at being father of the bride, I hope I don't mess it up. I haven't used a shotgun in years.

So much for my plans to blog every day while I was here. There was just too much to do to get motivated to make time for it. The snorkeling is best early in the morning when the water is most calm, then the rest of the day we puttered around the island doing various things. A couple of mornings ago we swam with giant sea turtles and a couple of octopuses in the morning, then drove up to the summit of Haleakala, the dead volcano that makes up the larger part of the island, in the afternoon. The summit is 10,023 feet above sea level, which made my head 10,028 feet 8 inches above the ocean. This is several thousand feet above the clouds, so it is identical to the view out of a commercial airliner, but you're outdoors. The landscape is lunar, of course, all volcanic rock with a few small, dry plants poking out here and there. It was around 80º on the beach when we started the drive but at sunset on the crater's rim it was about 38º with a 40mph wind. I don't know the mathematical formula for figuring wind chill, but it was about as cold as we've ever been, even though we were wearing jackets, pants and hats. Very surreal.

Downloading and resizing the photos is something I've not gotten to yet, but I'll post some later.