Heroin for Kids
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic, and this is my weekly blog post. The large Sunday Bizarro comic above is mine, as are the comments below. The past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics that follow were written and drawn by my partner Wayno, whose weekly blog post I highly recommend.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
Welcome, Jazz Pickle. Thank you for focusing your laser-like consciousness at this point in time and space. It’s only fair to remind you that this decision will change the trajectory of your life, as everything you do does.
In some other dimension you’re not consciously aware of, another version of you may have decided to look at videos of NASCAR crashes or an old episode of Hee Haw, and that took your life in a different direction. That version of you may have gone on to believe absurd conspiracies written by agents of an enemy government, and convinced you to vote for a pack of costumed hyenas with an insatiable appetite for everything in your wallet, purse, and bank account.
But in this dimension, you are here, now. I’ll do my best to ensure that this version of you made the better decision.
NOW TO CARTOONS: Remember PEZ candies? They are little tablets of pure sugar, and they come in fun dispensers, many of which became collectible. PEZ is among the armada of products that are responsible for most of us now bouncing on a diving board above the pool of diabetes, or having already cannonballed into the depths.
In my youth (everything before ten years ago), I loved those kooky dispensers, and I loved sugar. I still do.
But now that I’m trying to avoid a daily insulin habit by fighting that sugar monkey on back with every fiber of my being, I’m wondering why some clever capitalist hasn’t invented fun, comic-character syringes to help attract children to heroin. In another dimension, someone probably has. (Maybe RFK Jr. is from that dimension. It would explain a lot.)
Okay, put your pith helmet back on and grab your archeology digging spoons as we venture into the Wayno Wing of our cartoon pyramid to see what Bizarro cartoons he concocted for the week…No sugar added.
He’d show it to him if his ego wasn’t doing its best to hide it.
Time to switch over to Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space.
The last thing this joker needs is to be jacked up on booze.
A few readers noticed the bottom book says “ViP Partch,” Wayno’s favorite cartoonist.
When Wayno sent me the sketch for this one, I laughed out loud. I have several friends who play pickleball and travel for tournaments. I played pickleball once, just a few years ago. I admit it was lots of fun, but I gave it up immediately for a couple of reasons.
The scoring and where you stand for each point reminded me of a cross between Calvinball and backwards calculus. It made my eyebrows hurt.
I was also reminded of how my competitive nature compels me to chase balls I have no business chasing at my age, and how torturously slowly we heal once our bodies begin to morph into something resembling moth-eaten papier-mâché. (Post fifty.) I decided croquet was a better match for me. (Thank god there are no croquet leagues in my area—I’m busy enough already.)
For me, being an accountant would be as challenging as trying to keep score in a pickleball match. No thanks.
That’s this week’s cartoon croquet match, Jazz Pickleballers. Thanks for passing through our wickets. If you appreciate that we offer it for free, please help us keep it this way via the links below. We’ll tell everyone how cool you are.
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