May 20th, 2012

Submarine Water Dog

by Wayno & Piraro

(If you find yourself wondering what this cartoon would look like bigger, click the taxi’s license plate.)

Bizarro is brought to you today by My Short Career in Crime Fighting.

I’m posting this cartoon a few hours before it is officially published so I can’t say for sure, but I anticipate some questions on it. This seems to me to be one of those cartoons that some people will want to find a “deeper” meaning for. But there is none. If you turn a bus sign upside down, it says “sub” (sort of.) So it’s just one of those odd visual things that amuses me. For those of you keeping track of utterly trivial information in some sort of a stalker’s scrapbook, the street scene was drawn without reference from my memory of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn.

This ocean cartoon is one that I’m particularly proud of. It is simple, surreal, and leaves the reader wondering what the hell happened to this guy. You could go with several scenarios, from perfectly reasonable –– he was walking on a freshly mopped deck of a cruise ship, slipped, grabbed the sign and fell overboard –– to the preposterously bizarre –– the floor he was walking on is incredibly wet. I like the latter.

I got this idea when reading a suggestion by my young, collaborator buddy, Victor the Magnificent. His thought was a “wet floor” sign on a buoy out at sea. I liked it but this idea came to me as soon as I read his and I liked it even better. Sorry, Victor. One of your ideas was done as a Sunday comic and will appear in a few weeks, so chill out, awesome dude.

I’ve been to therapists off and on my entire adult life and really gotten a lot out of it. Most of them were very conversational and did not hesitate to suggest solutions to whatever problem that brought me there. But there have been those who said nothing and remained as silent and aloof as possible. It occurred to me during a visit with one such therapist that if all I needed was a silent confident with a sympathetic demeanor, I could save a lot of money by talking to my dog.

Legal disclaimer: Before using this suggestion for your own therapeutic treatment, consult a licensed therapist. (Hint: a good one will tell you, “sure, go ahead.”)

For those of you in the LA area, I’ll be doing a short comedy, musical set at World Fest tomorrow, Sunday, May 20. I’m scheduled to be on the main stage at 5:30pm. For a couple of hours before and a bit after, I’ll also be sitting at a table at one of the booths near the front gate, signing/selling books and posters and stuff. If you identify yourself as a Jazz Pickle, I’ll give you a free pack of trading cards! Click this paragraph for deets.