(For a touch of embiggenation, click the sleeping man’s slobber.)
Bizarro is brought to you today by Attention to Kerning.
“Emotional Support Therapy Animals,” or whatever you prefer to call them, have been in the news lately but I don’t read much of that sort of news so I’m not sure what the stories are about. Just for fun, let’s assume that the stories were about airlines cracking down on people putting “support animal” vests on their pets when they don’t actually need them, then, when asked if they have an actual need for the animal, people get indignant and pissed off that an airline is questioning their disability, when, in fact, they actually don’t have one.
If that’s what the stories are about, then I don’t know the answer. I’d be inclined to say that we humans are so impossibly complex and muddled that we can convince ourselves of pretty much anything, including that we can’t deal with the real world unless our Cocker Spaniel is with us. But what if the person sitting next to you has convinced himself that dogs are bad luck on airplanes and could cause it to crash? Whose rights do we protect?
And what of the passenger who is anxious unless a tarantula is climbing around in their hair? Life is complicated.
Maybe one of Wayno’s cartoons from this past week will shed some light on the human condition…
On some social media post or another, my pal, Wayno said this man is serving “onesie to life”. I can’t think of anything funnier than that to say.
Thank goodness those days are over and we can now enjoy music without ever paying a dime to the talented, hard-working artists who create it. That’s true of cartooning, too. Thanks to the Interwebs, it has never been easier to get your music, art, photography, etc. seen by the public, but it’s never been harder to get paid for it. This seems like a good time to visit this page. Or, visit my shop and nab yourself something dandy!
BTW: Over on Wayno’s version of the weekly blog cartoon rundown, he talks about a truly strange jukebox system that used to be in Pittsburgh bars and restaurants back in the day. So strange. Be sure to check it out when you’re done with my nonsense here. URL is at the bottom of this post.
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a corrupt king who was punished for eternity by being forced to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down and repeat the process. What should the Cheeto Mussolini be forced to push up a hill for eternity? I vote for a golf cart full of all of the women he has molested or paid off to keep quiet, plus his ego. Of course, that cart would be heavier than a collapsed star at that point so it would never budge an inch and would, instead, suck everything around it into a black hole. Not unlike his presidency, come to think of it.
Most people (except creationists) know that Chihuahuas evolved from wolves. But relatively unknown is the fact that people originally bred Chihuahuas as snacks for wolves so they’d leave their livestock alone. Sadly, they bred faster than the wolves could snack so we’re now stuck with a world full of Chihuahuas.
If bunnies have been on your mind today, perhaps it is because you long for a Bizarro Bunny enamel pin to wear on your favorite shirt, jacket, coat, hat, bag, or naked flesh if you’re one of those people into painful piercings. Whatever the use, snag one here before they sell out.
On Zombie Jesus Day (which happens to be today!) we have a giant, anthropomorphic, diabetes-encouraging rabbit sneaking into homes at night to commemorate a magical Jewish carpenter who came back from the dead and flew up to heaven. Most people only consider half of that statement to be make-believe.
It is inevitable that some of the people reading this will be offended by my referring to Easter as “Zombie Jesus Day”. If that is the case, rest assured that a magical Jewish carpenter whose dad is literally GOD can take care of himself and doesn’t need you to defend him against humor.
For those readers under a certain age, Little Orphan Annie was a very popular newspaper cartoon, then a Broadway musical and movie. For those OVER a certain age, “anime” is a Japanese animation form that I personally find ugly, noisy, and unwatchable. When I say that, I always get people saying, “Watch (name). It’s different. You’ll love it.” No, I won’t. I don’t even like Spirited Away and everyone worships that one. It just isn’t my thing.
Other people point out that the dog character is based on Pikachu, which apparently is something other than Anime. When you’re really into something, details like that matter. When you’re not, it’s hard to take it seriously enough to even finish typing a respo…
That’s it for this week, Jazz Pickles. According to comments and messages, most people are enjoying my new website, in spite of the fact that a couple of things still aren’t working properly. (They will soon!) A few of you aren’t crazy about it but have been polite in expressing that, so thanks. A few others have been rude about it, so I have relieved them of the obligation to visit. I’m guessing the rest of us won’t miss them.
Please have a gander at the links below which we hope will both amuse you and encourage you to continue to support our humor and art efforts.
Till next time, be happy, be smart, be nice, and resist ignorance and fascism.
Wayno: Weekly blog…Twitter…Instagram…WaynoVision…
Piraro: Bizarro shop (enamel pins, a Hello Shitty shirt and more!) … Bizarro tip jar …Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original cartoon art …Piraro Instagram … Piraro Twitter … Piraro coloring book
Love this week’s sponsor, “Attention to Kerning.”
I learned a new word today: “kerning”. I’ll probably forget it (like so many other things these days….memory “overload” is what I’m calling it….sigh), however, for one brief moment it was/ is/ has been (?) interesting to know there’s an actual word for not leaving spaces between words…. And I used to do newspaper layout (I was too busy counting spaces to know about kerning!)
PS The Aztecs used to eat chihuahuas.
If the Aztecs didn’t get eaten first.
And then there’s “keming”, which is the result of bad kerning. 😉
Re the new web site. It’s all fancy and shiny and stuff, but there aren’t any comics. Or possibly I’m not seeing any comics because Chrome has decided that they are nasty ads from Google competitors or whatever…
Is it just me or are other people having problems?
It was nice to see the weekly blog, though ’cause it let me catch up on everything I missed this week.
Thanks for your questions, Dale. At the top of the home page is a “daily comic” link which isn’t working yet. Once it is working, you’ll be able to see that day’s comic, plus scroll forward and backward to see tons of comics in the chronological order in which they were published. There will also be a calendar and keyword search function you’ll be able to use. Again, not working yet. There’s also an “archive” link at the top of the home page that has all my comics back to 2002 or so. I’m not completely certain how many things that page does exactly, but it seems to be up and running.
When I saw the cartoon I thought Sandy (Annie’s dog) was a Chihuahua, not one of those Peekaboo thingies.
The music streaming cartoon and Wayno’s blog post about the Pittsburgh jukebox system reminded me of what I saw in a TV program about the early electrical systems and the battle of AC versus DC power. From what I could find on the interwebs, in 1933, General George Squier patented a system for transmitting music, initially over AC lines and later over telephone lines. He founded the Muzak company and piped recorded music into homes in Cleveland, Ohio, for $1.50 per month.
Music by telephone is almost as old as the AC/DC wars. Circa 1900 there were subscription services that (as I understand it) would place a phone in your house, directly connected to a source that was playing recorded music 24/7. I can’t imagine the audio quality was that great, and I’m not sure whether you supposed to listen to a tinny telephone receiver or if the device had an amplifier (which would have been like the trumpet on the phonographs of that period).
Don’t know how long that business model survived. It had competition from phonographs, player pianos and even automated banjos.
There was an article about this in the magazine “American Heritage of Invention and Technology”, probably 20 years ago. I don’t know if that publication was ever digitized though, and I think they ceased publication more than a decade ago.
I get it when you said that when people say “Watch (name). It’s different. You’ll love it,” and that you don’t. There is one that I can think of that you just possibly, maybe, potentially, not hate… and even enjoy. It’s called “Cat Soup” and it’s not ugly or noisy. It has virtually no dialog and it’s surreal as hell. I consider it the strangest film that I’ve seen that actually makes sense (“Eraserhead doesn’t make that particular list”.) It’s only 33 minutes long so there’s not a big investment in time. I’ve put a YouTube link to it in the website field.
You convinced me to give it a try. I’ll let you know what happens!
I’m looking forward to finding out how you liked it.
This may have gotten lost in the web transition, detransition, retransition, which is why I’m commenting again. I am curious to see if you like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlLBX4EIlJY
To be honest, I don’t have the patience or interest to watch things like this but I skimmed it and looked at a few partial scenes here and there. It’s very well done and I can understand why people like it but it’s not my thing for some reason. There’s something about the look and sound of Japanese animation that really creeps me out. I loved animation as a kid but could not stand Astro Boy. I quite like the design of that character but can’t stand the look and sound of the cartoons he’s in.
I agree with your take on ‘Anime’, I have never liked it. I think it goes back to my dislike of ‘Clutch Cargo’ cartoons. I say no more…..I’ll go back to coloring in my Piraro coloring book……….
Exactly. Those of us raised during the golden age of animation have trouble putting up with cheap alternatives.
Big anime fan myself, different art styles for different people and what ever sinks your battleship and all that. You don’t like it, so what, that wont kill me.
I’ve always specifically liked anime cause were else do you get such a wide variety of companies willing to take a risk on such a large assortment of different genres and and art styles. Here in America the only cartoons that they air on TV are either kids comedy shows or adult comedy shows. Yeah the occasional action cartoon pops up, but they are few and far between.
Anime can be comedy, action, drama, romance, scifi, fantasy, supernatural, historical, alternate history, alternate reality, hell it can even be a slice of life which basically just follows around a group of people going about their everyday life.
Most of the super loud stuff you were watching were probably cheaply animated kids shows, not much louder and bombastically annoying in my opinion to the classic 1950’s sound catalog cartoons that were merry melodies and the “classic” Disney cartoons like Steamboat Willy.
You shouldn’t let the art hold you back form experiencing the stories that anime can do that western TV wont touch. So here are some shows that you should look at just for the story alone. I wont guarantee that you will like any of them, but I might as well throw them out there cause I don’t think any of these are ugly noisy and unwatchable. I may be wrong, who knows, you can never account for others personal taste.
Violet Evergarden- A young girl who was once a child soldier learns to live after the war is over and tries to discern the meaning of the last order her commanding officer gave her before he died. I’m not lying when I say I cried for almost every episode whether it was from sadness, grief, or even happiness and joy.
Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju- a former prisoner sees a famous Ragugo performer’s show in his prison and is so inspired that he immediately goes to him after his sentence is completed so that he can become his apprentice. Can he convince this cantankerous old man to teach him, and will the old man finally be able to escape the ghosts of his past.
The Great Passage- The story of a man that has difficulties communicating with people, but loves words and the power that they hold. Watch as he becomes part of a team that are attempting to publish a new dictionary and the journey they take over the years to do it. (this also is a live action drama too)
The Red Turtle- this is the story of a man trapped on a desert island and the red sea turtle that watches over him. (Almost no dialog at all, french animation company, so I’m not really sure that it counts as anime, but its still a good watch).
“Of course, that cart would be heavier than a collapsed star at that point so it would never budge an inch and would, instead, suck everything around it into a black hole.”
An instant painless end is very kind, but I would go with the eternity of up and down the hill.
Great cartoons again this week.
Thanks Dan. The site is looking good, though from your commentary I can’t figure out if you did enjoy, or better yet celebrate a moon phase on a SUN-day over a chocolate egg.
Also, about people flying with their dogs thing.. I’m all for it and all, I mean I own one and she’s a great sport just like 99.9% of other dogs, but I wonder if these dog owners care about other people with dog allergies?
take care!
-N
When I tried to view today’s comic, I was told to notify the author, so here goes:
An error occurred. Please notify the author. Stack: RaiseNilObjectException
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Good luck.
Thanks. We’re still having some issues with a few things on the site. Hoping to get it working next week.