Not To Be Missed

The Grand Imperial Poobah of Uncategorizable Comedy is in Los Angeles this weekend. If you've never seen him, rush to get tickets. If you've seen him before, you're already rushing.

His words:
Will Franken's One-Man Holiday Show: "Texas Chainsaw Yuletide"
Friday, December 3rd (8pm) and Saturday, December 4th (10pm)
Theatre Asylum
6320 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, CA
Only $15

Here's a link where you can score some tickets straightaway --

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/137563

If you want to see a reprise of my much-heralded twenty-five minute closer "Michael Caine Returns Home to the Village of Taliashire After Being Kicked in the Head By a Horse and Visited By The Ghost of Marlon Brando" as well as the new pieces, "Gay Raphael the Flaming Archangel" and "Vegetarian Dingo Testifies on His Own Behalf", this is the place to do it.

We Glorified Apes

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Blog.

I've heard that "Two and a Half Men" is America's most popular sit-com. As a person who would like very much to get into the TV business, this distresses me. I have only been able to watch a few minutes of a couple of episodes of this juggernaut before my brain ratcheted into survival mode and told my hand to change the channel. On each occasion, it took hours to shake off the willies.

I often find most extremely popular comedies to be utterly repugnant. This does not portend well for my chances in Hollywood. So I thought of this cartoon and I really like it. This would be a funnier premise for a sit-com, in my opinion.

My turtle penthouse gag is from a collaboration with my good friend and holder of one of the best pun names ever, Richard Cabeza. Since a tortoise's shell is his home, imagine what a high-rise apartment building of tortoises would look like. I don't even want to try to draw that.

Another popular TV show that makes me wonder if I am the same species as the millions of people who cannot live without it is "Dancing with the Stars." I wrote this gag weeks ago just because I hate the show, but when it ran in the papers last week, Bristles Palin's bid for top honors on that very show was in the news. A lucky coincidence. As many other people noted, how is this person a "star"? Becoming famous because you are the unwed pregnant teen of a megalomaniac hardly endows one with star quality.

But celebrity is often unearned, that is the nature of our human world. Humans are glorified apes who happened to evolve a very powerful brain. If any other species had been genetically gifted in this same way, they'd likely make just as big of fools of themselves as we do.

My apologies to any of my readers who are fans of the shows I've trashed here today. These are just my opinions, your results may vary wildly. As well they should. I'm just another random, glorified ape making a fool of myself on an hourly basis.

A parting gag: in reference to a blog a few days ago I accidentally referred to Ziggy as Zippy in a comment on Facebook. These characters with similar names could scarcely be at further ends of the cartoon scale but it gave me the idea to combine them. I present to you here, the yin/yang hero/villain, Zigpy the Pudhead, with apologies to Bill Griffith and Tom Wilson.

Cliche Discussion

(If you, like me, would like to see this picture bigger, click on the cartoon man's right eyelid.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Mysterious Explanations.

My favorite cartoons have always been single-panel magazine cartoons, the likes of which could once be found in National Lampoon and just about every other magazine in America, and which can now be found in The New Yorker and almost nowhere else. Within that genre is a canon of cartoon cliches that have been done millions of times in millions of ways: the psychiatrist's couch, the fish crawling out of the water and growing legs, the ascent of man, the guy stuck on a desert island, the cat and the mousehole, the guy crawling through a desert. This Sunday cartoon is particularly fun for me because I combined two of the oeuvre in one panel.

I love coming up with new versions of those standards, and especially doing satires of the standards themselves. Here is an example of one such satire from 1995, taken from my book, Life is Strange and So Are You – A Bizarro Sunday Treasury. The character in the water is mine, all the rest are borrowed from some of my favorite cartoonists (and one that I'm not a fan of at all but is highly recognizable.) See if you can figure out who is who. If you want to jump ahead, here is a diagram of which characters belong to which famous cartoonists. Most of you can guess which one I included not because I'm a fan but because of his recognizability alone.

Thanks for dropping by today, I've enjoyed pretending to talk to you.

.

Holiday Breakdown

Bizarro is brought to you today by Favorite Holiday Memories.

If you're reading this post then you, like me, survived yesterday's holiday here in the U.S. We call it Thanksgiving Day and it's a mixed bag in my book. There are things I both enjoy and despise about TGiving, which I have listed below for your future use and quick reference.

Likes:
a. Not a religious holiday. This keeps it low-key and guilt-free with no official services to attend to keep your mom from getting upset, no melodramatic speeches by TV pundits about how "our make-believe is being eroded by some other culture's make-believe".

b. Mostly just about food and who doesn't like to eat? (other than super models) Lift food to mouth, open, insert, close, chew. Any moron can do it.

c. Mindless activities like watching football on TV and taking a nap are actually an integral part of the tradition.

d. Somehow, merchants have not commandeered this holiday as they have Xmas, so gifts are not mandatory. What a money saver!

e. Miraculously, TGiving has escaped the hideous novelty songs with which Xmas is plagued for weeks. Ah, the sound of silence!

Dislikes:
a. People use it to get sappy about what they're thankful for. I dislike this because I think one should be aware of these things daily. Those of us who are, don't need a national holiday to remind us of what is a fundamental part of our consciousness, and those who do need to be reminded are probably not moved in any substantive manner anyway. To me, it's like having a national holiday to remind us to brush our teeth. If you have to be reminded, it's probably too late anyway.

b. People make it religious by thanking "god" for what they have. Okay, fine, thanking the gods for food, shelter, good weather, a successful massacre of your enemy, etc. is a common human behavior that predates language and any of our modern gods, but I'd like to see us grow out of this superstition eventually. You can be thankful without being thankful to invisible magic people. This country could use a lot more rational thought and a lot less superstitious fear and persecution, God knows.

c. Americans celebrate warm and fuzzy thankfulness by wreaking a grisly holocaust on 45 million innocent birds (in a single day). I get it, it's tradition, it will never change, blah blah. But those of us who have come to see members of other species as someone instead of something lament the needless and cruel slaughter. It goes on 365 days a year, of course (300 million turkeys annually), but on TGiving the slaughter itself is celebrated as part of the experience, complete with goofy, cartoon images of the victims in pilgrim hats.

I'm sure I've missed something, but I'm still reeling from my food hangover. I ate waaaaay too much last night and won't eat again soon. In the final tally, looks like I have 5 likes and 3 dislikes, so all in all, the holiday gets a thumbs up.

Here now, from the cartoon dungeon's archives, is an old Sunday comic I did years ago. (click it to see it bigger) I went through a period around the turn of the century during which I was writing oddball children's poems for an unspecified reason. Eventually, I turned some of them into cartoons.

More later, have a black, black Black Friday.


.

Catching Up

Bizarro is brought to you today by Before and After.

Gosh dern, it's good to be getting caught up with the blog posts. Much to discuss, let's get started.

Our first cartoon today is another collaboration between my friend and colleague, Wayno. We kicked this one around quite a bit before deciding on this approach. Here's Wayno's account of the whole story. I remain mystified by people's obsessions with virtual lives as opposed to their own. I've never done any of these kinds of things and am, frankly, afraid of them. They tap into some natural tendency of humans or they wouldn't be so popular. I stay away from them because I'm pretty sure I'd be hooked and not get anything done in the real world. It's the same reason I've never owned any video gaming system. Too tempting. Surfing the web is addictive enough.

Next stop, weight loss. Almost all of us could maintain a healthy weight if we ate natural foods and exercised, but it's just too tempting to eat delicious, readily-accessible, inexpensive junk food and watch TV instead of exercise. I fall prey to this, too, in my vegan way. It's the world we live in, waddyagonnado?

The early hands-free phone is an idea from my friend Michael Capozzola. It's an opportunity for a fun pic. Check out some of Capo's stand-up comedy. His routine on "cougars" is terrific.

These last two gags are about females who eat their mates and a male that probably should have been eaten long ago. Hope you get a smile.

As soon as I get some pics and video of my shows in Tulsa, I'll share them here. They both went really well and were more-or-less sold out. Always fun to do comedy in the hometown. One show included a Piraro impersonator.

Not Really Back

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long, I've been performing in Tulsa and visiting family. I'm catching up on deadlines today but will back tomorrow blogging like a mofo. Come back and have an ogle!

Many Cartoons

Today's whopper-sized Bizarro post is brought to you by Children As Food.

Lots to take care of today, I've fallen behind on posting cartoons. As I've mentioned within these electronic walls enough times to cause you to cough up your spleen, I have some shows in Tulsa later this week. This means I must get five days ahead on deadlines which takes 15 days of working double time. I have no idea why it works out that way, but that's cartoon math for you. Just when you think you've solved the equation, a safe falls on your head.

If you are in the Tulsa area, come to one or both of my shows this week, please. You won't regret it. I won't let you. If I see you shuffling off after the show with a look of regret on your face, I'll hit you with my dad's car.

Two to choose from:
Thursday, Nov 18, Philbrook Museum, 6pm-7:30, I'll be discussing my cartoon career, fine art, comedy shows, and playing a few original songs. Q & A to follow. Free with admission to museum.

Friday, Nov 19, Tulsa Elks Lodge, 8pm, a full-on comedy show with cartoons, stand-up, audience participation, onstage drawing, six original songs with backup musicians. $10, goes to charity.

Not sure if I'll be able to post again this week, but I'll try to do it once before I leave. I'd love to be do a post about the Great Garfield Veteran's Day Scandal of 2010, for instance, and talk about how that same thing has happened to me on a couple of occasions. I'll do it if I have time, for sure.

Back to the humor dungeon. Hope to see you in Tulsa.