Year-End Closeout

Although this is our final dispatch of the year, you can rest assured that we'll be back in 2020 with daily offerings of words and pictures, followed by weekly ramblings for those who care to hear even more from us.

Here's the latest batch of amusing quadrilaterals, with superfluous explanations and commentary from the author.

Our underworld executive seems to be pleased with the PR firm's recommendation. It's certainly worked in the past.

We realize that the Earth's South Pole is located on Antarctica, and is even colder than the planet's North Pole. Our character gained his saintly nickname based on behavior and wardrobe, rather than geographic location. He's Santa's polar opposite, so to speak.

Wednesday's panel generated a bumper crop of comments reflecting what I'll simply refer to as a wide variety of interpretations and assumptions. All I will add is, if this fellow's reputation is legit, he'd have a sense of humor about himself.

This is what's commonly referred to as an achievable goal.

As usual, we put our favorite gag of the week in the Friday slot. I liked this one because it appears that there's nothing unusual happening, and what's going on only becomes clear after the reader processes the image and words, making a surprising connection.

We think the strip layout works pretty well, too, and it might even take an additional beat for the gag to be revealed.

Polly would also like a smear of liver pate on that cracker.

We at Bizarro Studios North send our best wishes to all readers who celebrate holidays of any kind at this time of year, or no holiday at all.

I'm celebrating the completion of my second full year as the daily Bizarro cartoonist. I am grateful for every reader, for the support of my wonderful spouse, and for the fact that Dan Piraro continues to do the Sunday cartoon.

Working on the comic, and sharing it with the world continues to be a rich educational experience. One of the many things I've learned is, if the first word of a posted comment is "actually," I can probably skip the rest of it.

Seriously, I'm continually impressed with Bizarro's readers. Every comment is appreciated--even the ones I end up deleting.

Thanks to every one of you for following along on this journey. I hope you'll stick with us in the coming years.

Don't forget to check out Dan Piraro's blog for his latest Sunday page, and closing comments on 2019.

Cartoon Imitates Life

Our December 19 comic resonated with David, a Bizarro reader from Minnesota, who told us that he rigged up a modified artificial tree when a cat named Walter joined their family five years ago.

David was kind enough to share this photo of Walter and the tree.

David writes:

This is Walter trying to figure out how to get up the tree just after the inaugural installation. The tree is the top of a full-size artificial tree. It is mounted to a five foot piece of 4" PVC pipe. The pipe is braced and anchored to the floor with screws through the base plate and carpet, grabbing into the sub-floor plywood.

The next morning Walter climbed to the top of the furniture just out of the frame to the left, and launched himself into the tree. We had to move the furniture. That was five years ago and he still tries to get up there.

He is way too smart, athletic, and bored. A bad combination.

Sincere thanks to David for sharing the photo and story. Walter sounds like a cat with loads of personality.

Bonus Track?

For my year-end post, I'm not including a musical selection. 

Instead, I invite you to share a link to one of your favorite tunes.

Whether your choose something that relates in some way to one of this week's cartoons, or if it's just a song you think I'd enjoy, I look forward to hearing what you recommend.

As my good friend Tim Wolfson of The Corncrib Bar says, "Music improves the human condition," and we should all welcome some improvement in that area.

Thanks again. See you in 2020.
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