This Bizarro comic panel made me chuckle. I’m sure you can start a flamewar simply by mentioning the A-word (indeed, Dan Piraro’s blog post on this comic panel has quite a bit of comments), so why don’t we just laugh a bit and carry on?

Link – For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s excellent website and blog.

Quick – who knows the US government’s current national threat level? (It’s been elevated or yellow for quite a while, with domestic and international flights being with high or orange).

Dan Piraro pointed out that Japan has a much more meaningful security advisory system, but apparently he forgot that we also have this: the Elmo Terror Alert Level

For more Bizarro, check out Dan’s website and blog.

I’ve been neglectin’ mah duties of posting our weekly Bizarro comic (Sorry, Dan!) Well, let’s get that fixed right now.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog!

What is it with pie charts and the webbernets? This Bizarro comic panel reminds me of a post Miss Cellania wrote for our pal mental_floss last summer: Fun with Pie Charts.

For more Bizarro goodness, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

It’s been a while since I posted a Bizarro cartoon (sorry Dan!) – but I ran across this gem on Christmas and couldn’t resist despite the um, slightly political undertones.

For more Bizarro, be sure to check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog!

We don’t post a lot of politics on Neatorama, and even less of Sarah Palin (we only have 5 posts about her). But in for a penny, in for a pound in this case, I suppose. A while ago, I ran into this interesting photo of Alaska Governor Palin sitting on her ice throne at the 2007 World Ice Art Champsionships. It was -30° below, and she managed to look pretty comfy there! (Source)

For the record, I find Palin fascinating – and whether you agree with her politics or not, you can’t argue that she has captured the Republican
spotlight of the 2008 US Presidential Election and the hearts of many Americans.

John’s recent post of the world’s largest piñata reminded me of this Bizarro panel from a couple of days ago! Weird how that works, huh?

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Dan Piraro’s take on the Wall Street Bailout made me chuckle! If you like more Bizarro, make sure to visit Dan’s website and blog.

Previously on Neatorama:

- 10 American Financial Meltdowns in the Past Century
- T-shirts About the Economy
- The Upcoming Mother of All Economic Meltdown (yes, as predicted back in February by Nourial Roubini)

I thought this is perfect for "Caturday" – for more Bizarro goodness, please visit Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Hah! Our 8-month-old Ziggy looks just like Number 1. And yes, he did wake me up at 5:30 AM today …

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s blog and website.

After I chuckled heartily at Dan Piraro's depiction of the Fairy Gothmother in his awesome comic strip Bizarro, I wondered how goth today differs from the goths of yore. After a little research, I present to you this:

	Goth (of yesteryear)	Goth (of today)
Who	3rd and 4th centuries East Germanic tribe.	Kids dressed up like undertakers, complete with black eyeliners, nail polish, white face powder and so on
Origin	Scandinavia.	Early 1980s in the UK in the gothic rock scene
Feared by	The Romans and later, the Huns	Their parents, who feared social ostracism and high cosmetics bill, and the Russians government
Conquered by	The Byzantine Empire	Mean bullies at school
Likes	Warfare, sacrificing their vanquished to their god Tyz	Listening to gothic rock, playing dress ups, watching The Crow
Dislikes	The Romans and Huns	Tanning, being mistaken for Emo
Fashion accessories	Chain mail, swords, big axes and other weapons	Coffin-shaped things, piercings, pagan and Egyptian symbols, crosses, etc.
Similarity	Both have nothing to do with gargoyles and Gothic architecture (though they both may like the building style). At first, Gothic architecture was called "French Style" (Opus francigenum) by the Germans - I presume that was some sort of an insult. In the 1500s, the term "Goth" is a pejorative, meaning rude and barbaric. The Renaissance architects, who disliked the style, started calling it "Gothic" and the name stuck.

It’s Friday and so it’s time for our weekly Bizarro feature – for those who are going to college soon, congrats! (And to their parents, our sympathies). And yes, it should’ve been Roma, but why be picky?

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Previously on Neatorama: Latin You Should Know

Here’s our weekly collaboration with Bizarro (perhaps inspired by the recent spate of severed foot washing ashore in Canada?). For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog!

Oh, how true that is. This Bizarro comic strip hit too close to home (I’ve, um, done the exact same thing!). For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Oh la la! This Bizarro panel certainly made me look at Mr. Potato Head in a new way. For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Oh, how I love Bizarro, particularly this clever panel about Salvation Army’s "Special Forces!" For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Neatorama pal Dan Piraro is auctioning off original Bizarro comic arts on Heritage Auction Galleries. If you love Bizarro, this is the perfect opportunity to own your very own original comic strip: Link – Thanks Dan!

(And the comic above, "Return to Oz" is so true: just ask any graduate student!)

You’ve probably heard of Fox’s hit game show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" but Dan Piraro of Bizarro has a better idea: "Are You Faster Than a Fifth Grader?"

For more Bizarro, check out Dan’s website and blog.

I know, I know … it’s a little cubicle joke that may or may not be funny to you, depending on A) if you work in a dilbert-esque corporation, B) how secure your job is, and C) whether you are a Bizarro-lover or Bizarro-hater.

Have a great weekend, and my fingers are crossed that you continue to think outside the box without having the box cleaned out by the end of the day.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Heh! This Bizarro’s comic panel, titled Rorschach’s Parents, made me chuckle. For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s excellent website and blog.

By the way, Hermann Rorschach, the inventor of the psychological inkblot test named after him actually liked making inkblots as a child. In high school, his nickname was "Klex" (meaning inkblot). His favorite game was Klecksography, a Swiss childhood game where an ink blot was spotted on a paper which was then folded to make a butterfly or a bird (sounds familiar?) (source)

iMac, iPhone, iPod … it’s only time before someone comes up with the iHand! Here’s what Dan Piraro of Bizarro envisions it to be.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan’s blog and website.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

So that’s what God said to Adam and Eve … If they had gotten it right, it would’ve saved the civilization a lot of trouble!

See more Bizarro at Dan Piraro’s excellent website and blog. (BTW, you can see him perform live in New York on March 24, 2008 – Info here)

Well, it’s kind of true! For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

For those of you who didn’t get it, here’s a little story about Vincent van Gogh’s ear:

Van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, and what he described as a situation of "excessive tension" reached a crisis point on 23 December 1888, when Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor and then cut off the lower part of his own left ear, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." (Source)

Healthwise, Vincent was a basket case. Over the years, doctors came up with various mental and physical diagnoses including temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder, absinthe poisoning, lead poisoning, hypergraphia, and sunstroke (Source).

And on that note, Happy Valentin’s Day, everyone! Be sure to visit Dan Piraro’s website and blog for more Bizarro.

Update 2/14/08 – here’s another cute one, Dog and Cat’s Valentine:

This Bizarro comic panel hits it too close to home … too close … For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog.

Dan Piraro’s comic Bizarro is like reductio ad absurdum put in cartoon format (well, close enough). Do you agree with this panel? Is the Terror Threat Level useful?

For more Bizarro, check out Dan’s website and blog.

Dan Piraro continues to draw the surreally funny Bizarro like a magician pulls rabbits out of a hat (or in this case, buffalo).

//The first thing you probably notice is the ridiculously large hat the magician is wearing, but if you look closer, there’s another reason why the panel is funny.

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and blog. (By the way, the Press Democrat is running a survey on comics [link fixed], and Dan’s wondering if you would kindly vote for him).

Can’t seem to get that chore done? Bizarro has the explanation: blame The Vortex!

For more Bizarro, check out Dan Piraro’s website and new blog (and don’t miss the documentary video below)

Rob Garver of 29P Pictures created a neat little documentary of Dan Piraro, one of my most favorite cartoonists of all time. In it, Dan talked about how he got started, his comic Bizarro, and his activism.

You can find Dan’s cartoon Bizarro weekly on Neatorama, or daily on more than 250 newspapers.

Hit play or go to Link [Flash Video] (with one raunchy comic, but I won’t give it away)

Remember that ailurophobia is the irrational fear of cat? Well, coulrophobia [wiki] is the irrational fear of clowns. It comes from the Greek word kolobathristes meaning one that goes on stilts and phobos meaning fear (the Greeks didn’t have a word for clown – the closest thing was those on stilts, i.e. circus performers).

Clown phobia is quite common in small children, but in some, the fear persists well into adulthood. I’ve read that up to 1 in every 7 people have it to some degree, though the exact number is very hard to pin down.

It’s easy to make fun of clown phobia (clever pun, eh?) But it can be quite a dramatic and overpowering fear in adults. Like this lady who is scared to death of clowns:

[YouTube Link]

So why are people afraid of clowns? Most phobia started in childhood, but in some, fear of clown is sparked by reading about one (like the sadistic Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s novel It) or watching one in horror movies, even campy ones (Killer Klowns from Outer Space, anyone?). Indeed, the theme of evil clown [wiki] is quite common in American pop culture.

Perhaps some clowns are truly evil. Like serial killer John Wayne Gacy [wiki] aka The Killer Clown. Gacy, who was convicted for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men in the 1970s liked to dress up as "Pogo the clown" in neighborhood block parties to entertain little children. After he was caught and convicted, Gacy spent his days on death row painting – you’ve guessed it – clowns.

John Wayne Gacy’s Pogo and Clown Skull
(Photo: Serial Killer Central, who has more of these kinds of morbid art)

People are apt to overanalyze coulrophobia, though they can come up with interesting reasons. Kathryn Cillick at Phobialist came up with this explanation:

I have a theory about the reason for fearing clowns that I thought I would suggest to you. Because clowns have permanent, exaggerated expressions painted on their faces – usually of joy but not always, it renders the observer impotent in measuring facial expression as a precursor of action and for those who are vigilant about their environment, possibly because of past traumatic events, they are unable to interpret and therefore predict what this creature may do to them. This is heightened when we observe the "happy" clown performing some aggressive behavior – it becomes too much to take – creating intense confusion and fear. I don’t know if this is the reason – simply my first thoughts on a very intriguing subject.

If you’re afraid of clowns, you’re not alone: anti-clown celebrities include rapper P. Diddy, Johnny Depp, Carol Burnett and Anthony Bourdain.

Now I don’t find clowns scary. I find them creepy. How about you?