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.

————————————————————————————————————

The cartoon above was drawn from experience. I was raised in Tornado Alley. That’s a part of the Southern U.S. known for a lot of…you know.

I’m not sure if anyone knows exactly what the boundaries of Tornado Alley are, but it certainly ran straight through Oklahoma, where I was raised. When I was a kid, multiple tornados moved through the state every spring and erased entire communities like a shop vac removes a pile of sawdust.

I’d often be walking home from school under darkened, greenish skies when the wind would kick up and debris would fill the air. I’d pick up my little dog Toe-Toe to keep him safe (he attended the same school as I, though he was usually in the AP classes so I only saw him in the halls between classes), and I’d pick up my pace to get home before a funnel cloud formed. 

By the time I reached our family’s suburban Tulsa home, everyone would already be in the storm cellar, and the house would be eerily empty. On my way to the cellar, the house would often lift off its foundation and begin spinning. I’d sometimes see my uncle passing by an open window in a flying rowboat, which was strange because he lived hundreds of miles away in another state. I once saw my least favorite teacher Mrs. Ophelia Enema riding her bicycle through the air, cackling. (A life-threatening tornado is just the sort of thing that bitch would find hilarious.) 

One time, the entire window frame of my bedroom busted out of the wall, hit me in the noggin, and knocked me unconscious. When I awoke, I could tell the storm had passed and the house was back on the ground, but upon opening the front door, I discovered I was no longer in Oklahoma, but in someplace that was in color! (Oklahoma is perennially black and white, which was why our forefathers decided to give it to the Indians.) The people who lived in this new place were small, weird, and as likely to sing as to talk, but the colors were incredible!

After some other stuff happened, I would wake up and realize I was in my social studies class and the LSD was wearing off. 

Mrs. Enema would send me to detention for napping in class, and I’d drop another tab of acid. In a black-and-white state like Oklahoma, there wasn’t much else for a teenager to do.

(If you enjoyed this story, you will surely enjoy my weekly articles in The Naked Cartoonist!)

Now let’s enjoy the colors and weird characters of Wayno’s week of Bizarro cartoons, conceived of and completed without the aid of hallucinogens, as are all of our creative endeavors. (We’re not really psychonauts, I only occasionally imply that for the sake of humor.)

A fun trick to play on snowmen is to replace their coal lumps with cue balls while they sleep.

But instead of a great white whale, Ahab is obsessed with a hermit crab.

It’s an impossible choice. All of the globs nominated this year were completely convincing.

Just order anything and then ask to substitute every ingredient.

Wayno and I are huge fans of RAM.

Do NOT order the chicken soup.

That concludes this week’s comedy disaster. Thanks for helping us sift through the debris. If you enjoy what we do here and that we offer it for free, please consider helping us keep it that way via one or more of the links below. We’ll write your name in the wet cement of the sidewalks in front of our houses in gratitude.

The Naked Cartoonist…My weekly subscription newsletter of humorous creative writing, photos, art, videos & more.

… Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!

…Signed, numbered, limited-edition prints and original Bizarro panels  

COMICS KINGDOM SHOP (now with Bizarro products!)

WAYNO’S TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!

My wife, Olive Oyl’s, art, writing, and photography