The Three Arrrs

My latest collaboration with Dan Piraro offers a peek into a very specialized trade school.

It's kind of a neat little gag, in that there's a simple pun involved, but the joke is delivered without actually stating the sound-alike word. This adds a slight delay while the reader first notices the carrot, and then realizes that the young student ought to instead have a parrot on his shoulder. Adding that little beat before the joke clicks is more satisfying for the reader than if it had been spelled out explicitly.

Here's the original submission sketch for comparison.

This joke is only the tip of the comedic iceberg possible in this setting. One can easily imagine a classroom full of arrr-chetypes: the Nerd, the Prankster, the Jock, the Stud, the Airhead Cheerleader, the Secretly Sexy Bespectacled Bookworm, the Drunken Slob, the Stoner, Teacher's Pet, the Rich Kid, and the Crazy Sound Effects Guy, all in fashionable buccaneer garb. In fact, when Hollywood launches a Pirate Academy movie franchise, remember that you read it here first.

A few people have asked me about the number "42" next to Dan's signature.

As many regular readers know, Bizarro panels are often sprinkled with an assortment of secret symbols. He indicates how many appear in each panel with a small number by his name. Readers are saying that they can only find an eyeball and a stick of dynamite, and want to know how he came up with a total of forty-two. You may recall that April first is sort of a special day. Of course, it's Pirate Appreciation Day, when seafaring students give gifts to their teachers. The professor's desk drawer contains 27 flying saucers and 13 slices of pie, provided by his thoughtful students.

As always, you are invited to browse our many previous collaborations in this blog's Bizarro archive, and to visit in the future to see new gags, sketches, art, and miscellaneous thoughts posted here.