July 2nd, 2012

Jungle Jeep Easter Accident Fish

by Wayno & Piraro

Bizarro is brought to you by Super Hero Nursing Home.

For me, the fun of this gag is in the drawing. It’s a simple turn-of-a-popular-phrase kind of joke, but drawing the lions and their post-modern house was a kick. I love drawing anthropomorphized animals but don’t often do it. If you want to delve into deeper philosophical meanings, you can also say that this cartoon illustrates how far from nature we have drifted as a species. A good example of this kind of thinking is the way we often frame teenage sexuality in a moral context of “good” and “evil.” If you throw out the human construct of “morals” and just notice that teenagers are mammals and their bodies are driven to reproduce, the discussion is much simpler. When my daughters were growing up, I always discussed sexuality in biological terms and instead of telling them it was “wrong” to go too far too young, I explained the psychological effects of sexual relationships and how it can make life much more complicated and unpleasant when it doesn’t go well (and the first few almost never do). As well as the obvious discussion about how disruptive STDs and teen pregnancy can be. Then I  left the decision to them. Both of them had relatively sane relationships with boys as a result. (Or at least, I’m happy to take the credit.)  I’ve long thought that the farther away from nature you get, the harder it is to make sense of life. Not that I live in a teepee in the woods.

For grins, here’s another anthro-animal cartoon from a while back that I forgot to post way back then, so here it is.

Unfortunately, this barroom cartoon has nothing to do with teenage sex or nature vs. society. It’s just a play on the old joke: a horse walks into a bar–– the bartender says, “Why the long face?”

Someone told me that commentators on The Comics Curmudgeon were leaving comments with alternate captions. I looked thoroughly but never found them, alas. This would make a good caption contest cartoon, for sure. If you have a good idea for an alternate caption, I’d love to hear it. The person whose caption is deemed funniest by my panel of judges (me) wins a mention in this blog. Wow!

I did see a comment about this cartoon on another site that said they expected I would get some mail from it. That’s a reasonable assumption but so far I’ve not heard a peep. Maybe no blind people saw it.

This last cartoon is one of the more surreal I’ve done lately. Somebody I was having dinner with recently said he didn’t think my cartoons are as surreal as they used to be. So this one if for you, Bruce.

You can get almost any Bizarro cartoon ever on a variety of products like shirts and stuff. Go here to search by date. If you don’t see the one you’re looking for, ask me and I’ll post it!