April 2nd, 2011

April Fool’s Day

by Wayno & Piraro

Bizarro is brought to you today by Hummingbird Feeder Phenomenon.

It is April Fool’s Day and in that spirit I’d like to recommend that everyone become a regular reader of my absolute favorite cartoon strip in the world, Garfield. The art is a veritable feast for the eyes and the humor is both thought provoking and laugh-out-loud funny. There is also ample mention of food, which is always funny, especially lasagna, which is hilarious.

Back to reality, this is another one of those cartoons that I think is funny but at least one reader was bewildered by.

“What is funny about this? Does the child not understand the gentleman’s comment?”

Yes, you got it exactly. What is funnier than a child who does not understand something an adult says? Family Circus has been riding that wave for centuries. This cartoon is a perfect example of why the creators of Garfield and Family Circus are multi-millionaires and I am unable to afford health insurance. But we all make choices in life and mine was to create cartoons that I think are interesting, whether they are understood in Topeka, Kansas or not.

This unicorn cartoon came from a comedy show I did recently in NYC. Some cartoonists were on stage in teams – Rina Piccolo (Six Chix, Tina’s Groove, New Yorker) and Farley Katz (New Yorker) were on one team, and Drew Dernavich (New Yorker) and I on the other – and audience members called out words and topics that we were then given one minute to create cartoons about. Then the audience judged by applause which team had the best cartoon.  Sort of an improv comedy show with cartoons. Without much time to think, most of the cartoons are pretty lame (but still funny for the audience as we attempt to wisecrack our way out of our ineptitude) but I got this idea  when the audience was asked to suggest an animal and an occupation. Maybe it isn’t great, but I redrew it for Bizarro because, hey…any idea in a storm, you know? (This story is not an April Fool’s joke, it really happened. Not that it would have made a very good AF joke.)

And now this boxing cartoon, which is one of the many ideas I derived from my vast knowledge of history. We all know that history degrees are absolutely useless and my doctorate from Beijing University in pre-medieval Eurasian history is no exception. Except that I have a lot of information upon which to draw when I’m writing cartoons. Boxing originated in the Ottoman Empire and actually did begin with people fighting with packing containers on their hands. In those days, the “boxes” were made from dried yak skins and served to protect the pugilists’ hands and faces, and also to boost the sagging yak skin industry.

Get these cartoons on various products before the world ends… AGE…UNICORN…BOXING