(Click the pictures I have left here for greater embiggenation.)
NOTE: AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST ARE THE DETAILS OF TWO, FREE COMEDY TALKS I’M DOING THIS WEEK IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA! HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!
Bizarro is brought to you today by Strange Times.
This is the second cartoon I’ve done recently about large, lumpy surgical masks. (Here is the other.) Sometimes when I’m gag writing I think of a joke that leads to another similar one. If they are different enough, I’ll use them both. A few times in the past, I’ve challenged myself to come up with enough jokes on a particular topic to run an entire week. I did that once in 2002 with dry cleaner gags, shown below. One of my favorite aspects of this series was the signs in each gag about what happens to customers’ clothes left too long. You’ll need to click each one to temporarily embiggenate it so you can read those signs.
And now let’s move on to the cartoons of this past week.
I heard that Domino’s is planning to deliver pizzas with drones, or maybe they already are in some places. I can’t help but imagine this won’t work well enough to become a national standard but if it does, I’m glad I’m moving to Mexico because I don’t want to live in a community where products are flying everywhere overhead all of the time. On the other hand, it might be mildly amusing to watch bands of teenagers shooting pizzas out of the sky before they can arrive at their intended destination. Amusing until, of course, they shoot down the crochet shorts I ordered from Amazon.
I was thinking about horse whisperers and then my filthy mind went to a place where a guy who whispers into horse’s ears falls in love and wants to run away together by––how else?––jumping on the horse’s back and literally running away. Don’t be alarmed if you’re not laughing right now, it really isn’t a very funny cartoon.
For those of you not familiar with horse whisperers, it’s likely because you don’t have horses in your life, or the horses you have are not good at keeping secrets.
When I was a child back in the 1900s, department stores all had “lost and found” windows in a back hallway somewhere near the credit office and the bathrooms. I think they eventually got rid of them perhaps because modern people don’t lose things anymore, or maybe because modern employees and shoppers just take found articles home in the spirit of “finders keepers”.
This gag tickles me a bit because I’ve been accused of this more than once. As my beloved Olive Oyl can attest, I have a bad habit of becoming sarcastic and condescending when I feel backed into a corner. This cartoon is my way of outing myself, perhaps encouraging me to improve my behavior. As I am fond of saying, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re not allowed to laugh at anyone else, either.” I definitely don’t want to give up the right to laugh at others.
Lots of people on the Interwebs seem to have liked this cartoon about “smart” things. I’m sure that younger people find the inability of those of us over a certain age to navigate technology amusing and pathetic. Can’t you just feel them laughing behind your back? But with the speed at which technology changes, it is only a matter of time––and probably not much of it––before a completely new platform that does not currently exist will become the norm and anyone not born after 2010 will be as lost as I am. When millions of Americans suddenly find they can’t get or hold a job without being able to navigate the virtual world everyone is living and doing business in by blinking at the hologram floating in front of their face that only they can see, it will be my turn to laugh.
This last cartoon is funny because who among us has not gotten so drunk we participated in a one-night stand with a species from another galaxy? Am I right? Okay, I’ve not actually had that experience, but I wanted to seem cool like the other guys. Consider it harmless locker room talk.
Hey, Jazz Pickles, even if you’re not into defacing black and white images by adding colors, I’m pretty sure you’ll love looking at the insane amount of detail and insanity that I packed into my new Bizarro Land Coloring Book. It has 31 of the most tremendously detailed and imaginative images I’ve ever created and it’s only $6. You really can’t afford not to buy a dozen or more. Great gift, you say? You’re right! Here is a detail of about one third of a single page. You can buy the book here, or from other online book vendors, or from many of your local bookstores.
Also, I’ll be doing a couple of promotional comedy talks in Pasadena, California this week:
Monday, October 17 (TOMORROW NIGHT!) at 7pm at Vroman’s Bookstore on Colorado, totally free to attend, buy a book and have me sign it if you want. I’m friendly and funny and you will be glad you dropped by!
Next Saturday, October 22 at 7pm, I’ll be at South Pasadena Library on Oxley Street as part of the Library Arts Crawl. Again, it’s a free event, I’ll be funny and showing cartoons and art on a big screen, and you can buy one or more books for me to sign after the event. Meet me and take a picture with me but don’t back me into a corner. I can get condescending.
