November 1st, 2012

Zombie Mummy Vampire Pirate Toado

by Wayno & Piraro

Bizarro is brought to you today by He Man.

Here are five cartoons leading up to Halloween. If you are from a country which does not celebrate Halloween and you have never heard of it, it is a holiday at the end of October during which we Americans disguise our children as murderers, monsters, and demons and send them door to door asking for handouts.

The first cartoon shown here features a woman who has not let the scarcity of suitable mates discourage her from continuing her search. With the assistance of a shovel, she finds what she’s been looking for.

When I drew this mummy gag I thought to myself, who do I know that is going to have a baby whose name I could use in this cartoon? Suddenly, deep within the recesses of my wrinkly brain came the words, “your nephew and his wife are expecting, you idiot.” They enjoyed the cartoon and called to thank me. It was awfully sweet of them but that didn’t stop me from writing them out of my will when I found out they’re not naming the child after me. Kids today…

Here’s a bit of behind-the-scenes trivia: When I submitted this “Trampire” cartoon to King Features, the sign said, “Will Suck For Blood.” This prompted a note from my editor informing me that the word “suck” is not well liked by newspaper editors in the U.S. and could well cause one or more to refuse to publish it. Even though the person using the term is a vampire. Apparently, one can too easily imagine the panhandler is referring to homosexual prostitution. See the smut in question here. Not wanting to tempt fate in a bad economy, I opted for the “family friendly” version seen here, which is a play off the popular panhandler’s sign: Why lie? Need beer. On a happier note, the “trampire” pun came to me from a reader in India, who becomes the first person in his country to successfully contribute to Bizarro. Congratulations, Dinesh Damodaran, if that is your real name.

I like pirate costumes and was wearing one myself this year. Here is a link to some photos of what I looked like at a Halloween party I attended last weekend. The man next to me came to the party as me, which I found very funny, although my buccaneer demeanor did not allow me to show it in this pic. If any of you have funny or interesting photos of your Halloween costume, shoot them my way and I might post a few. I love Halloween costumes, especially the very clever and/or incredibly bad, homemade ones.

My last cartoon is this little ditty, a collaboration with my cartoonist colleague, Dan McConnell. Here is his FB page if you want to see more of his work and say hello.

Hope you had a dandy Halloween, Jazz Pickles.