Bizarro characters are cracked—not just in the loony-bin sense. Their bodies have actual cracks in them, which is how you know that they’re not the real Superman and Lois Lane and boy reporter Jimmy Olsen. The Bizarro Superman, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen live on Htrae, which is earth backward . . . get it? The Bizarro code states: Us do the opposite of all earthly things. For example, in one unpleasantly moldy issue I’d read and reread down in that basement—the heater had sprung a leak and saturated everything—a successful Bizarro bonds salesman proudly used this slogan: Guaranteed to lose money for you! Being called stupid was a compliment in Bizarro world. So was being called ugly, greedy, and lazy.
Things were upside down and inside out there.
In my Bizarro comic the main character was Hteboj. That’s Jobeth spelled backward if you’re dense—remember, dense is a compliment. Hteboj had cracked skin and a smart mouth—which means dumb in Bizarro world.
Eirual and Ekaj were Hteboj’s Bizarro parents, faithfully following the Bizarro dictum and cheerfully doing the opposite of all earthly things. So when Hteboj slipped up and told Eirual a story about her brother Neb nearly blowing his hand off that could in no way have come from her own memory, what did she do? She gave Hteboj a shopping trip to Tlevesoor Llam (Roosevelt Mall, spelled backward). When Eirual and Ekaj were informed by their son that he’d caught Hteboj pilfering memories from Neb’s Koobecaf page, what did they do then? They made Hteboj her favorite dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes, that’s what. And when Ykceb talked her way into the house on Elpam Street and told Eirual—one mother to another—that the daughter sleeping in their upstairs bedroom was the very same girl who’d pretended to be hers—even offering to show Eirual actual proof of it—I have a picture—what then? Huh . . . huh?
Eirual told the mother of all whoppers.
She took a DNA test. She’s our daughter with 99.9 percent certainty.
Upside down and inside out.
That’s the way it is in Bizarro world.