Note

Just a quick note that I've moved the chapters from Ziggy's Journey to their own blog. This kind of avant-garde fiction doesn't look like something I'm going to be able to pursue on a permanent basis, and so I'd prefer not to muck up Ziggy Liberated with posts with a different tone and story. Feel free to browse the archives here as always - Ziggy Liberated has inexplicably maintained a reader base. Thank you!

Ziggy Liberated: The End

Well, here we are - one year of Ziggy analyzed, sometimes heckled and only occasionally criticized. Ziggy Liberated is on the home stretch, and other things have taken my interest of late, but dangit if I didn't promise I'd tread the dusty trail to Ziggy's April 8th strip! And traverse the final week we will, in a little post I like to call "Too Much, Too Late."

I may eventually turn this site into something else entirely (we'll keep the archives, of course). Check back in a couple of months! It's been fun!

(Note: for an explanation of what this site is and why on God's green Earth I decided to do something like it, please see this post.)



Ah, yes - the old sign which has no function other than to comment upon and warn against its own existence. It's an old comedy standby, and for good reason - we're not comfortable with the idea of inanimate self-reference, particularly when the item in question exists purely for the purpose of this cautionary self-reference.

Of course, Ziggy's confusion may stem more from the fact that this sign wasn't in his living room yesterday and all of the doors and windows are still sealed.


I've been known to remark that there are two kinds of nations: those with ubiquitous bicycle racks and those whose citizens use the skin of tarantulas to make drums. I'd like to think that the irony in the statement protects me from any allegations of racism, yet it's undeniable that such a statement is shortsighted, impolite and uninformed. So it is without any fear of further ruining my reputation that I state that the best exchange rate in the world wouldn't cover up the fact that I'd be killed by enormous pitcher plants minutes after getting off of the plane.


"A coup!" the people shouted as the gen'ral came upon,
The television screen as he began to prattle on.
"Beware the FDA!" he said. "And shun the FCC!
In fact, the only one that you have cause to trust is me!"

He made his case quite plainly: "As protector of the peace
I've found myself quite able in my job, to say the least.
My warnings on tobacco, alcohol and magazines,
Have surely helped us all in steering clear of nasty things!"

"I've stood firm in my duties and I patiently await,
The transfer to my hands of standing armies and the State."


"Oh, wait. He went to that kinky medical school."


Geez, Ziggy really needs to catch on. These animals don't care if the movie doesn't have animals - they watch what they want!

"Hey, why are you eating that apple cereal if it doesn't taste like apple?"
"Shut your noisehole, Dad!" ™

Geez, climb up a mountain with nothing but your bare hands and look what happens at the top! I'm willing to bet here that this is the last time Ziggy every does anything again.


"Hyuk! Just thought that I'd poke my creepy head into your living space and make you fear for your own security! Don't mind me - I'll just be wandering around outside, critiquing the decor and just generally making a scat-coated mess of things."

We don't like the idea of nature intruding into our homes, though walls and ceilings are an arbitrary division and they occupy the same space. Frankly we're not too keen on nature in its own habitat, either: I vividly recall my youthful horror as a couple of ne'er-do-will fellow Boy Scouts on a camping trip spent much of their days catching crawdads and crushing their arms off with pliers. Were we to find a crawdad in our house I doubt we'd stop at the arms (and, though Good Samaritan I am, a piece of paper fitted under a cup hardly seems up to the task of letting them loose again outside).

Our fungicides, shoe soles and screens do an admiral job of reinforcing the illusion that there are two distinct and separate types of locations in this world: Inside and Outside. Good luck with that, human race.


Seems a fitting end to a year-long philosophical analysis of Ziggy. Thanks, everybody!

"I wuv you!"

A short story in two parts (and in reverse order!)

Part one two: Why, Ziggy and his parrot are reading books in an attempt to explore each other's worlds and arrive at an understanding! What could be happening here?



Part two one: Ah, it seems that Ziggy ran across this bizarre amalgamation of walking and flying, and in an attempt to combine the two is collaborating with his parrot to discover the secret to levitation.

It ain't funny, but it sure makes sense.

A short story in two parts

Part one: Bird gets angry at our protagonist for perceived cheapness.


Part two: Bird poisons local food in a petty attempt at vengeance.

I tell you, I was the soldier in that photo!

It's a monument to all of the nobodies and unknowns in the world! Like the soldier and nurse who kissed at the end of World War II, masked people who rob bakeries and ghostwriters to celebrity memoirs! God bless you people for staying out of the way and giving credit to those with fame to spare.

Pychedelic Storytime Friday

The teller to the left leaned toward ol' Frizzy Hair and whispered, "He means the used cardboard boxes from the back. I'll go get them." Ziggy's nose upturned, he waited with baited breath and began to draw on the spirits and advisors of the astral plane within himself, that level of consciousness accessible by only the most adept and socially inept:


. . . And arrived on a tall mountaintop, to face that wizened, decrepit representative of his subconscious self, that bearded out representative of his submerged ego who only speaks in bland, occasionally-offensive platitudes like "Change we can believe in", "Send our window washers back to Kyrgyzstan when they came from!" and "Protect Social Security! Kill an old person with untraceable poison!"

This side of Ziggy's personality was not one he was proud of - it had been repressed for a reason - and yet in confronting it Ziggy began to sense something about himself, a hidden bigotry that could be channeled, perhaps, rather than become mere energy squandered. As usual, Ziggy's quest to make friends while discovering his inner self led him to dial an old friend from this astral plane, and so ensued an enthralling, largely imaginary, one-sided conversation which ended in the typical manner:


For while Ziggy's friends were eager to help him, their opinion of his intelligence was not to be overestimated, a characteristic which persisted into the astral plane. Ziggy's spirit journey abruptly ended, for the bank teller had arrived with Ziggy's precious, precious cardboard boxes and a cryptic message:


"Oh, it's you," she said, correcting herself. "Just the boxes, then."

Bedeviled Appliances

"And now, if you'll turn this way, I'll tell you the story of the Revengful Dishwasher, which will conclude the tour. Y'see, three years ago I had a habit of cooking up bootleg hooch in my Whirlpool. One morning, after finishing a particularly potent rinse cycle, the still within up and exploded, sending fortified spirits flying everywhere! Ever since it's felt a continual need to melt every plastic object within. This concludes the tour of my Hell House."