Elephant Jibberish
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.
Perhaps the character Tarzan is so enduring because he reminds us of ourselves.
He was raised by apes, just like we were. He became master of the jungle—as we all wish to do in school and later, in the workplace—and then he was somewhat tamed by Jane, his romantic partner. That rings a bell, too. And who wouldn’t want a chimp as their best buddy? And to ride around on an elephant who obeyed your every utterance of made-up gibberish? “Ungowa!”
When Jane coerced Tarzan into donning a suit and visiting the big city, the endless rules and regulations of society (not to mention the pants) drove him bananas and he soon tore off his clothing and returned to the jungle. Yup, I get it. I did that after a few months at my first office job.
I see the adventures of Tarzan as being about our desire to linger in childhood and ignore the responsibilities of adulthood. Ungowa, indeed!
But Tarzan of the Penguins is different. I, for one, find him immediately less alluring. Not since the late nineteenth century, have people wanted to spend all day in formal clothing. Walruses don’t have anywhere near the top speed or endurance as elephants do, and chimps—with their opposable thumbs and nearly human I.Q.—are much more versatile sidekicks than penguins would be. Don’t even get me started on the difference in diet between a jungle and Antarctica. Fish all day, every day would get old fast. And what’s for dessert? Snow.
I could go on but I shan’t. If you enjoy my writing, I invite you to spend five bucks to explore the eighteen articles and short stories I’ve posted so far in my weekly, subscription newsletter The Naked Cartoonist. Cancel at any time, of course.
Last week’s NC article “I’ve Been a Bad Boy” is a truthful accounting of how my wife and I untangled and ironed out some common marital difficulties. More than one commenter called it “courageous.” (Hey, I didn’t put “naked” in the name for nothing!) My wife also writes from her perspective about these issues on her website. (No subscription necessary.) This kind of truth-telling can be a little scary, but we also find it liberating and informative.
Let’s liberate our mouths into smiles now, with my colleague Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons for the week!
Even more interesting than those pink Crocs is WAYNO’S NOMINATION FOR AN AWARD by the National Cartoonists Society for his work on Bizarro. Go Wayno!
Shoes, hats, and plastic buildings are as far toward civilization as they’ll venture.
Many readers thought the flame on Liberty’s torch was the fish tail of our Secret Symbols. Wayno explains in his weekly post that it was inadvertent.
This is a reference to “crop circles,” of course. Long before they began to appear, I used to mow my family’s lawn in various shapes to relieve the boredom of walking back and forth in straight lines. My dad objected, but I told him it was his fault for spawning an artist instead of an engineer or mathematician.
I don’t mean to brag but I’m pretty much unbeatable on air cymbals.
Just to be safe, I call them “alternative-lifestyle godmothers” now.
That concludes our little comedy puppet show for this week. If you enjoy that our comics are offered for free without ads or pop-ups, please consider helping us keep it that way via the links below. We’ll love you like a recently adopted puppy. (And we promise never to shoot you and brag about it.)
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