Ventrilomime
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, then a short essay, then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner, Wayno whose weekly blog post and be seen here. I highly recommend it.
Here’s the ANSWER KEY to this week’s Sunday comic, above.
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This week’s Sunday cartoon is an interesting mind-bender that I’ve enjoyed thinking about. What do you get if you combine the vaudevillian skills of ventriloquism and miming? I’ll be honest and tell you that I don’t know the answer but I’d love to see some creative attempts. I’m not curious enough to begin watching shows like America’s Got Talent, but I might tune in to an episode if I heard a ventrilomime was going to perform. (Or is mimoquist better?)
As I wrote that, I realized how many times I’ve said something doesn’t exist only to be told by one of you clever readers that it does; these days almost all variations and combinations of everything have been tried and can be found on the Internet. So I googled it just now and found something called “Ventriloquist Mime” but it was only the name of a rap “song.” I put that last word in quotes because I don’t know what else to call those rap things. To my mind, by definition, songs must include singing and melody, and rapping is not singing as much as it is talking in rhythm to a beat that is not particularly melodic. For the same reason, instrumentals are not “songs” either.
The scene above takes place in the office of an old-school talent agency. I named it Vetter Talent Agency because the seed for this joke was suggested by my friend, Rick Vetter. He’s not a talent agent, a ventriloquist, or a mime, he’s an entomologist and arachnologist. He occasionally has funny ideas and sends me notions that I sometimes turn into a cartoon. In return, every time I come across a spider that I’ve not seen before, I send him a photo and ask him what it is.
It was Rick who taught me not to be afraid of spiders (with very few exceptions) or to kill them reflexively, as so many of us do. Ninety-nine percent of spiders we come across in our homes and gardens cannot and will not hurt us. In fact, they eat bugs that can hurt us, like fleas, flies, and mosquitos, so killing or removing them is acting against our best interests. He also taught me that spiders either live indoors or outdoors and if you catch an indoor spider and put it outside, it will either come back in or die. So I just leave them where they are and apologize for disturbing them.
That is not true of mimes or ventriloquists, however. If I find one of those in my house, I immediately put them outside, preferably off my property. If they return, I kill them. Please don’t tell the police.
The talent agent’s office gave me an opportunity for a couple of fun background gags, which I always enjoy. I hope you enjoy them, too.
And finally, since readers last week expressed interest in photos from my personal life, from our morning dog walk I include this pic of the Bizarro Bunny impersonating a cactus.
Let’s move from that mystical experience to Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons for the week…
Our Ouija board recently told Olive Oyl and me that our Magic Eight Ball has been lying to us. We asked the eight ball if it has been lying and it’s response was “Very doubtful.” But it might be lying.
The shirt and the pineapple seemed like wise purchases when he was in that beach town but once he gets home he’ll never wear them again.
This joke is for advanced spellers only.
The adolescent in me can’t help but wonder if when a Jack-in-the-box gets too old to pop up, do they take Viagra?
I need one of these. There is so much about modern TV that I need explained to me. Like why anyone watches those competition shows.
Before we go, there’s a new shop on the King Features website and they’ve got a fun new Bizarro product for the holidays.
That concludes our graphic humor scrimmage for today, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for sticking around until all the towels in the locker room have been picked up. If you like what we do and that we do it without ads or clickbait, please consider helping us keep it that way via one of the links below. We and our ventriloquist dummies will thank you in mime.
Until next week, if you’re abducted by aliens, don’t forget to validate their parking.
BIZARRO SHOP Fun and cheap!
… Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!
…Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original Bizarro panels