Invasion Scenario

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hot Letters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crazy Erect Mullet

Bizarro is brought to you today by the Anti-Mullet.

Here are three cartoons from the past week. In the first, we see a fine, patriotic American in a mullet. Hard as it is to believe, there are still people out there who wear their hair this way. That's fine, don't get me wrong, it's everyone's prerogative to wear their hair any way they like and far be it from me to ridicule someone for looking unconventional. But still, the mullet is a hideous hairstyle and inherently funny. To me, that is.

The next offering comes from my vast experience with therapists. They always give an emergency number you can call when they are out of town. I don't actually use therapists for emergency-style problems so it amuses me when they tell me that. But I understand people who do. If you're seriously suicidal or something, you'd hate to be on the railing of a bridge and find out the one person you trust to talk you down is on a beach in Barbados and can't come to the phone. Myself, I go when I'm having trouble making a life decision like breaking up with someone or changing jobs or something, so I can't see myself calling a surrogate and pleading for help. "Should I do it in a restaurant, or in her apartment? What if she starts breaking things?"

Lastly, we have an erectile dysfunction gag, which is always funny, as long as you aren't the Viagra taker. I have no erectile difficulties, so this is still funny to me. Or maybe I'm just pretending it's funny to me so nobody will know I have an erectile problem. Most of you will never know.

Dead Like Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Offspring

Bizarro is brought to you today by How To Use Your Nose To Impress The Ladies.
Here's a fun story. The color cartoon shown here is what appeared in my client newspapers but it is not the way I originally wrote or drew it. The black and white cartoon below was my first attempt.

My editors at the syndicate didn't understand the original cartoon (I don't blame them) and thought that it might be seen as racist, and they were undoubtedly right. As those of you who have read my blog regularly know, people will complain about racism if given even a sliver of an opportunity. Complaints to newspapers are bad for business, so I changed the gag to a ventriloquist theme, which is a better cartoon anyway.

The original gag was supposed to be that a couple of white ladies see a middle-aged black lady walking a blond baby in a stroller and think she has adopted him. Their comment is meant to imply that they see this sort of thing all the time. What they are actually seeing are nannies, of course. I don't know about other parts of the country, but here in NYC one regularly sees middle-aged women-of-color walking white kids. Evidently, lots of rich white folks don't raise their own kids and who can blame them? Making babies is so much more fun than making sure they don't grow up to be scourges on society.*

*This statement is sarcasm.

Old Baggage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Well Grammar.

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

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

PUZZLER ANSWERS!

(To view this comic larger, click on it!)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Puzzling Things.

For those of you who did not arrive here because of the URL in today's Sunday Bizarro, the image above is what appeared in papers worldwide today. As you can see from the extremely neat, vertical graffiti on the wall to the mouse's right, the "answers" to the puzzle are to be posted on this blog. Take this opportunity to solve it yourself if you are exceedingly clever, or, click this link for the answers!

These puzzles were a collaboration between myself and my good friend, Cliff. He has an upcoming book for kids of a certain age (I can't remember the age) that is a novel which incorporates these kinds of puzzles. He's a puzzling fellow. I'll let you know when it is in stores so you can buy many many copies and Cliff can quit his job as a salesmen of undergarments for pets.

If you're new to this blog, stop by every day and click the "like" button at the bottom. It makes me feel liked. And when I feel liked, my cartoons are funnier. It's a win/win.

For an adult thrill, click the next link to see the caption I wanted to add to this cartoon but did not because it would have caused too many brain aneurysms across America. Adult Caption!!

Yes, I know that wasn't that big of a deal, but lots of people go nuts over that sort of thing for fear they may have to explain to their kids what a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is and then they might become one.

Onward and upward, thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again soon.

Penguin Camouflage

Bizarro is brought to you today by Casual Chic.

A lot of people liked this pirate cartoon and I do too. Penguins are inherently funny and sitting on the shoulder of a bad ass makes them even funnier. Just my opinion, no angry comments, please.

The Sunday cartoon below if from July 4th weekend. It isn't really meant to be particularly patriotic or anything, I just happened to think of it when I needed a cartoon to run on July 4th. Here in NYC, we have camouflaged soldiers walking through subway stations and airports keeping an eye out for terrorists or whatever. It often occurs to me that in urban settings such as this, traditional camouflage performs the opposite function from what it was intended. They might as well be wearing garish clown suits or foam rubber mascot costumes.

Of course, they're not really trying to disappear in those situations so the whole argument makes no sense. I just wanted an excuse to mention foam rubber mascot costumes. Gosh, those things are great.