Delicious Self-Destruction

Looking back over the week's Bizarro comics, it strikes me that half of them show characters in perilous (perhaps life-threatening) situations. Let's call them cautionary tales, and not psychoanalyze the cartoonist, shall we?

Although unicorns can be trained to use a box, even small quantities of airborne glitter present a serious respiratory hazard, and are nearly impossible to remove from clothing, hair, and skin. Thinking through the premise of this cartoon gave me a renewed appreciation for my feline housemates.

Some pets are highly trainable, and can learn to obey a variety of spoken commands. Others, however, are less responsive.

The unfortunate character about to eat his own baked effigy bears an unintended resemblance to performer and writer Peter Bergman (1939-2012). Bergman was a member of the revolutionary comedy group, the Firesign Theatre, who helped to twist the teenage brain of this cartoonist, and whose influence is present, at some level, in all of my work.

Sketchbook page, January 6, 2018

This gag started as an unconscious doodle of a voodoo doll, which reminded me of a gingerbread boy, and led to a drawing of a cookie stuck with a pin.

Bizarro CEO (Chief Eyeball Officer) Dan Piraro and I exchanged several emails discussing which spelling (bologna or baloney) to use in this caption. We finally decided to go with the Americanized spelling, since it also means "nonsense," and there's no question about the pronunciation.

The officer in this panel added a note to the traffic ticket reading, "I laughed, I cried, I added three points onto your driving record."

Our final cartoon of the week reminds us of the sad truth that some harmful behaviors are also highly addictive.

The poor creature in the foreground wondered aloud, "If we weren't meant to eat toasted marshmallows, why do we have arms that are such perfect cooking twigs?"

Thanks for following Bizarro for another week. Be sure to read Dan's weekly blog for his take on the week's comics, and to see his latest Sunday panel. Also, Dan's been posting his recent paintings on his Instagram page, and they're wonderfully surreal.

Oh, and watch those sweets.