I NEGLECTED TO POST MY WEEKLY ROUNDUP LAST SUNDAY SO THIS SUNDAY FEATURES TWO WEEK’S WORTH OF CARTOONS. A QUICK GLANCE AT MY CALCULATOR SAYS THAT’S MORE THAN A DOZEN CARTOONS!
(Don’t be afraid to embiggenate these cartoons by clicking any hat or shoe in any drawing.)
Bizarro is brought to you today by Religious Questions Answered.
Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is so engrossed in their mobile phone and/or earbuds that they do not recognize your existence? The Old West sheriff in the above cartoon feels your pain but at least for him, it is only temporary. Once he runs that one slacker from the future out of town, life returns to normal. If you live in the present, however, as the overwhelming majority of people alive today do, it is a routine and daily experience with no end in sight. It’s not always easy being from the present.
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What the hell is this? Another cowboy gag? Is Bizarro a cartoon strip about the Old West? Sometimes. And also 10,000 other things.
For my foreign readers or those who are simply not familiar with common expressions used in Hollywood westerns, “riding off into the sunset” was a phrase used at the end of the story as the hero rides off toward the horizon after saving the town from those bad guys who were taking advantage of everyone and making them miserable in one way or another. Washington D.C. could use one of those heroes right about now.
If you think you recognize the character speaking in the above cartoon, you’re right. He’s from Easter Island, the place 3,686 kilometers (2,290 miles) off the coast of Chile. It is so named because it was where Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning, even though he was executed in Jerusalem, over 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) away. Somehow, he managed to get there in only three days, around 1900 years before airplanes were even invented. That’s why it is considered a miracle.
This time of year it is important to remember to address and mail gifts early to avoid the holiday rush. Did I use the word “holiday” here instead of “Christmas” because I am a proponent of the so-called “War on Christmas”? Yes. Does that mean I hate Christmas? I do, but not as much as I hate Bill O’Reilly and love tormenting him in any small way possible.
By the way, if you’re a gift-buying sort, I’d love love love it if you considered one of my incredibly cool coloring books (lots of folks are really into the mind-calming activity of coloring these days) or something from my store. If you want to spend a little more money on something unique and super nice, try one of my signed-and-numbered, limited-edition prints (and some original art) from a fancypants art gallery. (The elves at Rancho Bizarro will really appreciate your support because they work hard all year producing this stuff and I use the profits from sales to feed them. Starving an elf is no way to start the holiday season.)
Unfortunately for turkeys, this time of year keeps The Grim Gobbler pretty busy. Not quite as busy is The Grim Tofu.
Just one of the many benefits of the easy chair vs. the difficult chair is that one’s clothes last longer than they used to. One also saves on shampoo.
I thought my brains were scrambled before, but since I’ve been studying Spanish these past 11 months, I realize I didn’t know how good I had it. I still can’t speak Spanish but now I can’t speak English anymore, either. (I had to type this paragraph three times to get it right.)
Do you hate terrible things and love good things? If so, and you consider my cartoons to be in that second category, please consider the satisfying act of supporting my efforts via a one-time donation or a monthly pledge. I make my living from newspapers and they aren’t doing so well these days. Thanks a llama!
HEY, THIS IS ANOTHER TITLE PANEL, WHICH MEANS WE’RE NOW HEADING INTO THE SECOND WEEK OF COMICS!
Do you get the “Gladiators vs. Sadiators” cartoon above? They were the emojis of ancient Rome.
One of the many amusing things they did in ancient Rome was to have public events in which people and animals would fight to the death. Even though it was not the most prevalent form of these bloodsport events, the most famous version is when they would feed Christians to the lions. Most people assume this was a form of religious persecution but in fact, it was because lions preferred the taste of Christians because of their bland diets; lions found members of other religions to be too spicy.
If you’ve eaten water buffalo and didn’t like it, it may be because you live too far from the coast. At least, that’s what people always say when I tell them I can’t stand any kind of seafood.
What was most certainly not cute was getting that head through the birth canal. (The last word in that previous sentence brings to mind gondolas, but in a very different context.)
Some readers didn’t get this gag and I suspect it is because they are not familiar with the common expression on which it is a riff: “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” That’s a shortened version of the original expression which ended this way… “because he was Canadian, where they use meters.”Â
(Yes, I know Canadians spell it “metres” but I’m American and was writing it from my point of view.)
The National Cartoonists Society is having an online charity auction of lots of cartoon art from many professional cartoonists. The proceeds will go to various disaster relief funds like those in Mexico City, Puerto Rico, Houston, etc. (Disasters of every sort are something we are not in shortage of these days.) I’ve donated the original ink drawing from the cartoon beneath this blue sentence, which has long been one of my own favorites. Please consider going here to view what’s available. Much of the cartoon art up for auction normally sells for many hundreds of bucks and some typically retail for over a thousand, so this is a terrific way to snag one waaaaay cheaper.
Capes are so much cooler than caps, but caps never get slammed in the door of your whatever-mobile as you race off to fight crime, nor get accidentally dipped in the toilet. Which, as a matter of fact, is why Robin’s cape is yellow.
I once ate BBQ in front of my dogs while wearing a dog hand puppet, but that was only because there were no napkins and I didn’t want to get my hands dirty. Afterwards, I let the dogs eat the hand puppet in spite of the eerily cannibalistic nature of it.
That’s the whole story for this week, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for reading this far and until next time, be happy, be smart, be nice, and resist fascism and ignorance.
Maybe it was your Mehican translator program, but in the Horse/Sunset cartoon, ‘gases’ is spelled, well, ‘gases’…only 2 ‘s’s, not three. Reminds me of the time Lucy asked CB about ‘g’s in ‘goggles’, CB said, ‘3’, and Lucy says, ‘thanks’, and proceeds to write ‘ggogles’…
http://grammarist.com/usage/gases-gasses/
The article you linked to supported my point rather than the opposite; however, if Dan will use the more common ‘gases’ the next nine times that it is necessary, then the balance of the universe will be restored.
And…he fixed it!! Amazing; a comment I made was considered and applied! The world was changed! Now to test my theory that a man can stop rush hour traffic by just walking into it! I can fly!!!…
Moving around has wreaked havoc with my (American) English. It’s important to differentiate the “kinds” of English, since a decade in Canada left me with some (but not all!) British spellings (mostly adding “u”s and reversing “e” and “r”). Coming to Belgium with high school and a smattering of university-level French was where the actual loss of vocabulary began (speaking of a “manifestation” rather than a “demonstration”); there were also more spelling issues. Then we moved to the Flemish-(Dutch-) speaking region and I started forgetting routine (American) English words (I swear it’s not just an “age” thing! Friends in similar positions report the same!).
My once excellent spelling (elementary school National Spelling Bee runner-up!) is GONE. Thank the internet for spell check & those little red lines under mistakes!
Buena suerte!
One of my local expat friends read an article published recently that was saying that bilingual people and those learning new languages are much more likely to forget words and have those long “ummmmm….” moments. So you’re right. It isn’t just age!
Q: What do you call someone who can speak three languages?
A: Trilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who can speak two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who can speak only one language?
A: American.
SO true! I’ve always regretted that I was never encouraged to learn another language when I was a kid. I’d never taken a single language class until I moved here at the age of 59. Way too late to ever be much good at it but I’m determined.
I applaud your efforts. Given the ubiquity of English, it would be easy to just slide by. But if there is one thing that annoys me about some immigrants is the lack of effort to try and learn the local language. Hell, when I go on vacation out of country for just days or a few weeks, I always try to learn at least hello, goodbye, please and thank you. My illiterate Portuguese Grandmother taught herself English when she came to the US, even though she lived in a Portuguese community and could have gotten by without it. To me it just seems to be a matter of common courtesy.
Couldn’t agree more. Languages are very good for the brain and it is a matter of courtesy. I know gringos who’ve lived here for many years but can’t speak Spanish. I’m happy to say, however, that most of my expat friends here are pretty good at it.
The reason why Robin’s cape is yellow made me laugh out loud!! Thanks, Dan!! And, as I started to read the cartoons, I gave thanks, in the spirit of the season, that we share this life with you!
You do realize that the “joke” about the lion taking a picture of food is in extremely bad taste.
The bodies lying around or being eaten are Christians who were fed to the lions as entertainment in Rome.
Maybe you would get big laughs if you showed a bunch of emaciated men in striped pajamas at Dachau being prodded with bayonets.
Come on. Use your brains.
Too soon?
Coffee out the nose moment!
LOL!!
LOL…
I read somewhere that good art leaves it’s viewers uncomfortable (at least occasionally ) and in this instance seems to have accomplished that. Professional victims aside, we already knew your stuff is good.
One should remember that at the time of the Coliseum christians were an easily ridiculed sub-culture; today’s analogy would be dropping hip hop artists like Justin Bieber into the alligator lagoon at Seaworld. You see? No gasps of horror…
Lol… Better give it another millennium…
Lord have mercy.
You came here for good taste?
I bet the lions thought it was “good taste”!
If you ever consider making the “capped crusaders” comic a poster, please let this English teacher know. I’d love to put it up in my classroom for my Twitter-pated students to see.
Thanks so much, Eliza. I can’t make it a poster but King Features sells very nice color prints of all my cartoons. They start at around $25 unframed, I think. You can get that one by going to the link below and clicking “buy prints” button below. http://bizarro.com/comics/november-24-2017/
Why is the Easter Island gag colored so yellow? Is there smog in the town? What does smog have to do with Easter? Is someone burning crosses? Is it a sly comment about race relations? Help me, my mind is wandering!
Sorry to disqualify your religious gag, but Easter Island is so named because that holiday happened to be the day the explorers came across it.
Have you been trolling Wikipedia again? Fake news!
Don’t look now but I think someEd swapped out “Holidays” for “Christmas” in the unaddressed elephant panel. I suspect it was motivated by someone overloading a vague notion golf cart borrowed from Mar-o-Lago, the world capital of raging vague notions.
It’s a good thing you specified “in digits” in the “nineteen – -8” proof-of-life challenge. I wasn’t sure whether or not to support your estudios by writing “Juan.” It was tough enough getting my phone’s camera to focus on a single raised finger to answer as requested.
Did not know Robin be pimpin’, but he’s wearing a green hat, justlike the Chinese Emperor ordered. lol
I had to laugh at myself when I read the explanation for the sheriff with the time traveler problem comic. I didn’t get it, originally, because I thought the player piano (or someone inside) was the one saying “hello”.
It is sad that a horse can be educated enough to speak, but have its science education be so lacking. Imagine not knowing that the sun is a plasma not a gas.
You can lead a horse to water but there’s only so much chemistry they can absorb.
Hey Dan, i happened to laugh out loud (NOT LOL) at the lion food picture, the world is entirely TOOOOOO politically correct these days. I wonder what they’d do with my now-favorite saying, “lordy, lordy.” At least in the Philippines, fewer people take pics of their food than in San Francisco, but it’s close….. Here, i can learn bisayan / cebuano slowly (i’m up to 50 words or so, should be more), as 90% of the people speak english, thanks to 400 years of spanish and ‘mercan colonialists… Oh, by the way, will you KNOCK OFF the western habit of a strict SCHEDULE, stay on tropical time, which means only lawyers and professionals are on time, but not always … stay well….
I’m working on the schedule thing, Ed. Been responsible for a cartoon each day for 33 years. Changing that soon, though, and really looking forward to it!
Oh!
Goody!
But how soon is — “soon”?
Two a day will be so much better than just one!
When will Ed & I & all your fans start enjoying this
lagniappe?
No kidding here — I really love your stuff.
And I was a little worried when you skipped the last
Bizarro Pie.
Stay tuned for the big announcement. Not sure yet but before the first of the year.
Maybe that’s the way they spell it in Canada.
Hey watch it there…I’m Canadian and I resemble that remrk…
Your train of thought cartoon: A friend was rambling on at a restaurant table and not letting anyone else contribute a word. When he paused, I said something and he got testy and said “You interrupted my train of thought.” If there is ONE TIME in my whole life where I said something perfect, that was it: I replied “Short train.”
The bubble-gum cowboy…. Is the bird finger proper for a cigar band ring? I never knew!
I say yes.
When I saw the pigeon puppet gag in the paper, my immediate thought was that I have to try that to see if it would indeed get a reaction from the birds. I’ll have to add that to my list of things to do, right after squirrel fishing..
Let me know how it turns out! And thanks for educating me about squirrel fishing. I’d not heard of it until now.
The Capped Crusaders had me giggling all morning = )
Re the “Difficult Chair” cartoon of 11/17/17 —
Do I see a bit of collusion twixt thee & Paul Anderson’s similar Marmaduke cartoon of the same date?
To wit — you both employ —
1] a man +
2] a large dog +
3] an “easy” chair +
4] the same layout of items +
5] the same posture by the man.
The man in the Marmaduke cartoon is asleep, oblivious of the huge Great Dane planted atop him.
6] The clincher [for me] is that each man has a “difficult chair.”
But the enlightened Bizarro guy has gotten away from the oppressive mutt!
Please labor on, enlightened Sir!
Keep up the collusions — no matter how subtle.
They add an extra layer to the joy of us folks who pay attention.
[I just wonder how many I miss!]
And — learning a 2nd language as you are … getting older … is said to be an important way to keep you mind young.
[I’ve been going that myself for the last 47 years here 13 blocks from the Sonora border.]
Some of us assumed the “train of thought” toon had some connection to Abe Lincoln.
I can totally see that but what’s funny is that I glanced at your name next to your comment first, which brought to mind Mrs. Lincoln. Then I read your post. (cue eery music)
I clicked on the Death of Turkeys and it didn’t embigginate. It isolated on an eye-catching black background, but at the same size. And it’s not my 48-inch TV I use as a monitor…
Yeah, the weekday comics don’t embiggenate. Only the Sunday ones.
Hey there , Dan. Hello from Singapore. Did anyone ever mistake you for Dan Bilzerian?
Not that I’m aware of. I don’t know who that is.
Por favor..help me out here, a guy stuck in the 1800’s talking on a cell phone rambles on about a golf cart and vague notions….
He’s a modern guy but fancies an eclectic wardrobe.
and it’s 4 teats, not 6
Clearly, I have not spent enough time under cows. :^}
Someone stated that today is your birthday
Happy Birthday Dan and I hope you have a fantastic day!!
I will be very heartbroken if you are going to quit doing Bizarro comics. I love them and enjoy looking for all of your secret symbols. U will also miss your Bizarro Pie on Sundays.
Thanks, Pat. Nov 30 is actually my father’s birthday, not mine, but I’ll pass your good wishes on to him. :^}
As always – you made my day 🙂 Thanks!
My wife just snapped this at the San Francisco airport. Could not find it online. Coffee and oak? How about pipe tobacco, suede, and wood chips?
https://ibb.co/is0Y2w
The “now we’re going to test your reflexes” one would be funnier if the patient was Batman (or perhaps Jackie Chan). That said, you’re going great!