Dan Piraro's Blog, page 2

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 Jan. 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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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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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.

Kindergarten Lesson

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

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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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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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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?

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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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