Pink Gold
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 I recommend highly.
Here’s the ANSWER KEY to this week’s Secret Symbols in the Sunday comic, above.——————————————————————————————————
This week’s Sunday cartoon, above, is an alternative version of the famous German fairytale, Rumpelstiltskin. To refresh your memory: A young woman is locked in a tower by a bad guy and told to spin straw into gold. She cannot do that but some creepy gnome-type guy shows up who can: the catch is he demands her firstborn child as payment. She agrees, and he completes the task.
Years later, after being released from the tower, she has a kid and the gnome comes to collect. She doesn’t want to give up her kid (clearly, she does not yet know how expensive and noisy children can be) so she begs him to let her renege on her vow. For reasons not explained, the gnome says he’ll allow her to keep her baby if she can guess his name in three days. Two point nine days pass and she cannot guess it, but at the last minute, somebody who overheard him singing his name to himself in premature celebration tips her off. She says his name, he doesn’t get to take possession of the child, and he goes away hopping mad.
Fairytales in their original form are often creepy as hell and this one is no exception. They also usually have a moral so what’s this one’s? The first thing I see is, “Never promise to give your children away to strangers.” Makes sense, I’ll buy that. Also, maybe, “Don’t celebrate before your victory.” A version of, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” as they say. Anything else? How about, “Don’t refer to yourself in third person when you’re not sure who might be listening,” or, “Don’t be afraid to make physics-defying demands of others?” “Never trust a person who promises to give you their kid?” There are so many options.
Why he wants the kid in the first place is something we probably don’t want to know. Maybe he’s going to trade it to the witch in Hansel and Gretel for a shutter off her gingerbread house. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to for what would amount to a big cookie.
In the case of my cartoon above, the moral is simple: Don’t assume that others value the same things you do. Humans consider gold valuable, for instance, but dogs don’t really have much use for it. A baloney sandwich, however, is another matter. I’ve seen dogs limp away bleeding and half-blind after a struggle over a baloney sandwich. Alternate morals might include, “Beware of talking dogs wearing hats,” and, “Beware of men who own towers with bars on the windows.”
On a related topic, what’s up with the spelling of that semi-gelatinous, pink, smushed meat product that Americans call “baloney.” Didn’t it used to be called “Bologna,” (buh-low-nya) after a town in Italy where it supposedly comes from? Yes, but since many Americans have trouble pronouncing words that include letter combinations not common in English, it got phonemicized. How we ever got used to spellings like “through,” “rough,” and “bough” I’ll never know.
Later, the word “baloney” became synonymous with “false,” or “nonsensical”. Those words describe the pink slabs fairly well, too, I think.
And finally, people who know things about science recommend that those of us who wish to avoid life-ending diseases do not make a daily habit of eating processed meats, no matter how they are spelled. But dogs can probably handle it.
A daily diet of Bizarro cartoons, on the other hand, has been proven to be completely harmless, so let’s scarf down this week’s offerings from my colleague, Wayno…
What’s the politically correct term for human-like sculptures made of snow? Snow people? Snow they? Anthropomorphic snow piles?
I also recommend following Vlad the Imprudent.
I was afraid of that. I should have waited.
I have to admit, I’m a sucker for gals with that rockabilly look. I think I imprinted on the Li’l Abner comic strip when I was a child.
It just occurred to me that these last two cartoons are both about dressing for success.
That wraps up this week’s comedy campaign, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for sticking around for our concession speech. If you like what we do and that we do it without ads, clickbait, or federal indictments, perhaps you will consider helping us keep it this way. Every penny you spend or donate goes directly toward keeping the funnies coming.
Until next week, to catch a cat burglar, just put a notebook on a countertop. He or she will be sitting on it when you return.
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