Terms of Protection
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, a short essay, and then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner Wayno, whose weekly blog post I highly recommend.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
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Bienvenido, Jazz Pickles and Nudists! Thanks for your brief attention.
Regular readers know that I call my Bizarro readers “Jazz Pickles”—for reasons somewhat unknown—and I’ve begun calling the subscribers to my new project, The Naked Cartoonist, “Nudists.”
I post a new piece of creative writing for subscribers each Friday and here is a brief excerpt from the most recent one, “How Many Bricks in a Shit-House?”
“I don’t know why I pretend to understand things that I don’t, but I’ve known lots of guys who do this. It has been my experience that most men do not mind being seen as rude, selfish, arrogant, or pushy, but we cannot abide being thought stupid. I suspect it’s an evolutionary feature that developed because arrogant jackasses proved useful on mastodon hunts, while confused nitwits like me got trampled.”
All of my stories have a few photos and bits of spot art like this.
Yes, that’s me about to become mastodon flip-flops. (I don’t call it The Naked Cartoonist for nothing!) The rest of the story goes into some fun and unexpected directions but has nothing to do with mastodons.
Below the article, after you’ve stopped chuckling and thanking yourself for paying $1.25 for it (four articles per month for only 5 bucks!) you’ll find “This Week’s Extras,” in which I feature a humorous summary of my checkered relationship history. Checkered? Plaid, paisley, and charred is more accurate.
I mention how a relationship can either unravel like an old sweater, or “blow up like an over-cooked burrito, leaving beans and cheese splattered all over the window of the microwave of my heart.” Unless you’re one of the lucky few who choose well the first time, you know what I mean.
It concludes with some of my favorite dating cartoons and a ten-year-old photo of me when I met my wife, posing and being a poser. Looks silly now, but thankfully, it worked!
Zeus, Zardoz, and Zorro, I hate sales pitches but I have just one more thing: If you subscribe before Feb 25 (or already have) at either level (monthly $5, yearly $50) you’ll be entered to win a personalized sketch card I will draw with you in mind. You can suggest something or let me just do my thing, but either way, it’ll be fun and weird. Here’s a past example:
If you miss my wacky writing adventures on the Bizarro blog, you’ll love The Naked Cartoonist.
But enough of my blathering, let’s find out what Wayno has for us with his week of Bizarro cartoons…
Perhaps he should exchange it for an ice cream koan.
Rumor has it that his wife, Soapy, got tired of cleaning up after him.
A few commenters have said Mardi Gras lasts for a week but that’s not actually true. The parades and drunkenness in N’Orleans last a couple of weeks, but “Mardi Gras” means “Fat Tuesday” and marks the end of the fun and the beginning of Lent. (Pardon my OCD for forcing me to explain that.)
You’ll also need to be able to keep a clear head while drinking. We’ll start that section next week.
One last thing for real: My good buddy, Andrew Couch, is a very talented writer and podcaster. I’ll do ten years in purgatory after I die if I don’t recommend his Substack newsletter. It is so good!
Another fun pun from a commenter: Easel like Sunday morning.
That wraps up this week’s funny falafel wrap. Thanks for depositing your wrapper in the trash bin. If you like what we do and that we do it for free, please consider helping us keep it that way via one of the links below. We’ll love you for your generosity and speak kindly of you at cocktail parties.
The Naked Cartoonist…My weekly subscription newsletter of humorous creative writing & more.
… Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!
…Signed, numbered, limited-edition prints and original Bizarro panels
King Features Subscription + archive access
COMICS KINGDOM SHOP (now with Bizarro products!)
WAYNO’S TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!