The Heimlich Guy
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. He does a weekly blog post, too, and I highly recommend it.
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Looking at the above cartoon just now made me think of a premise for a short story.
There is a person who is so profoundly socially awkward that they have no friends or even acquaintances they can chat with. Not one. Even though this person lives in a crowded city, this condition renders him severely lonely. Because he doesn’t have the ability to even make small talk with strangers, he becomes very good at pretending to choke on food and he does this in restaurants so that someone will give him the Heimlich maneuver. He performs this stunt several times each week, reveling in the attention and contact with another person putting their arms around him. If he does it too many times in the same restaurant, he gets banned. Maybe he falls in love with a woman who “saves his life” and so he follows her around. Still finding himself unable to speak to her, he repeatedly places himself in the same restaurant as she so she’ll save him again and again. She thinks he’s weird at first but he begins to grow on her and she’s never cared much for small talk anyway. She feels for him and understands he can’t communicate any other way so this becomes their relationship; meeting in restaurants and her saving him. (The Heimlich Man ©DanPiraro2022)
It seems like it would be fun to write, I wish I had time to do it.
But what with my work on Bizarro and illustrating my graphic novel, Peyote Cowboy, there isn’t enough time in the day. Okay, I admit I already routinely spend a couple of hours every morning reading and writing, but lately, I’ve been on a different writing project about my recent spiritual journey, and its been really gratifying so I don’t want to cut back on that just now.
I’ve blogged about it a few times, talked a lot about Alan Watts, Buddhism, Taoism, and the like, but I was recently inspired to write more about it; maybe as much as a short book. It isn’t at all going to be one of those I’ve got it figured out books because what the hell do I know? Instead, it will be more of a here’s what happened to me and how it changed things for me book. I don’t know if it will ever get published but I might post it online or something when it’s done, who knows? For now, I’m learning a lot about myself just writing it.
Much of it is autobiographical because I felt I needed to talk about where I came from and how I think I got here. I talk about creativity and how it has fit into my atheism and spiritualism, and how a couple of years ago I suddenly had a few really weird, unexplainable experiences and something opened up for me. Basically, I’m just telling that story and trying to make it sort of amusing and thought-provoking along the way. Kind of what I’m trying to do on this blog, I guess.
It is my belief that there are two kinds of ideas: ones that come from your own head and ones that come from someplace else. Don’t ask me where that someplace else is because I don’t know. But when it happens, it’s a pretty amazing thing and feels like magic. I think most very actively creative people know the thing I’m talking about. The ancient Romans called that being visited by the Muses. Whatever it is, all kinds of ideas come from “someplace else”: stories, graphics, songs, cartoons, paintings, sculptures, a funny line, you name it. And when I get an idea that way I try to honor it by at least giving it a try. I figure there’s a reason it came to me instead of somebody else and I shouldn’t waste the privilege of being on that list. Whatever that might mean.
And having said that about honoring ideas that come from somewhere else, I guess I need to eventually get back to the story about the Heimlich guy and see if it really wants to be written. Sometimes these things are given to me just to make me chuckle and nothing more.
P.S. My having posted that opening about the short story idea gives me copyright to it so don’t get any ideas. You’ll hear from my attorneys if you do and, believe me, they have not been on a spiritual journey recently.
Now it’s time to lighten up with a cartoon journey through the worlds Wayno created with his Bizarro cartoons from the week!…
I’ve never said this before but I’ll say it now. Nothing is creepier than an unshaven puppet.
Can you identify all of the characters on the wall? Wayno lists them in his blog post this week.
I think it would be fun if a captcha said to click “I am not a pornstar”.
This is one of those images that might be fun to write your own captions to.
He’ll find it when he moves.
This is one of Wayno’s sneakier gags.
If you had to look this one up to understand it, join the club. If you needed to look it up but didn’t bother, shame on you!
That wraps up this week’s barrel of fun. Thanks for sticking around to clean up the monkey shit. If you find yourself not hating what we do and that we don’t assault you with pop-up ads, or ads for Pop-Tarts, please consider thanking us via one of the links below. Olive Oyl and I will brachiate across Rancho Bizarro in your honor.
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March 6, 2022