Saturday, April 20, 2024

All Mod Cons

This is the weekly dispatch from Bizarro Studios North, where I have been writing and drawing the Monday through Saturday Bizarro comics since 2018. My partner and friend Dan Piraro created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.

Wayno

If one has occasion as a doctor to make the acquaintance of one of those people who, though not remarkable in other ways, are well known in their circle as jokers and the originators of many viable jokes, one may be surprised to discover that the joker is a disunited personality, disposed to neurotic disorders.
Sigmund Freud
from Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious


Greetings from Hollywood Gardens, PA, where your cartoonist is feeling gratitude for modern conveniences. Around ten o'clock Monday morning, a water main break interrupted our neighborhood's water service. By early evening, it hadn't yet been restored, so my spouse and I walked to a nearby restaurant and enjoyed a meal together on a lovely spring evening.

When I woke up Tuesday morning, the pipes were still dry, and I couldn't focus on anything other than the fact that my system needed caffeine, stat! I jumped in the car and went in search of coffee.

By the time I returned, the repairs were complete and everything was functioning normally, but I was grumbling about having to drink coffee from a certain ubiquitous chain. A quick shower moderated my mood but didn't wash away the realization that in less than twenty-four hours, I'd become a muttering crank.

Fortunately, I confined my poor behavior to the home, and my spouse and I had a good laugh about it. The incident reminded me how absolutely spoiled we are by having everything we might need at our fingertips at all times.

Perhaps an occasional service interruption isn't so terrible if it makes us think twice before ranting about a minor inconvenience. 

I recovered from my temporary neurotic disorder, and for the rest of the week, my home-brewed java tasted better than usual. Maybe I learned a small lesson.


A family member suggested today's pipe pic of Fred MacMurray, who has appeared in the blog before.


On April 10 (National Sibling Day) I sent both of my brothers an old family photo of the three of us. As kids, we watched My Three Sons on TV every week, and my middle brother remarked that in those days, we related to the titular sons (Robbie, Chip, and Ernie) but now all three of us are more like their grumpy caretaker Uncle Charley.

L-R: Barry Livingston ("Ernie"), William Demarest ("Uncle Charley"),
Stanley Livingston ("Chip"), Don Grady ("Robbie")
 

I'm approaching the age where I feel more like Uncle Charley's predecessor, Bub (portrayed by William Frawley).


Let's check out this week's Bizarro comics, which Dr. Freud might have said are the product of a disunited personality.



For Tax Day, we presented a method to stimulate business. My first idea was candy toothbrushes, but this seemed to work better.


I wondered if it would be possible to do a Narcissus joke without including the name or drawing the trope of him admiring himself in a pond. I think the character's body language and facial expression do a decent job of showing personality type, but I also gave him a monogrammed belt buckle. 

I resisted the temptation to call the ride the Tunnel of Self-Love.


They refer to themselves as Original Gagstas.


It's more convenient, but it doesn't have that warm analog sound.



I scanned an old clothbound volume to get a funky texture for the book in this panel. We spare no effort to bring you quality cartoon content here at BizarroCo.


Some advertising characters have dark psychological subtexts.


That, my friends, is the latest from my Little Shop of Humor. Thank you for visiting. We'll have another batch of new stuff next week.


Bonus Track

The Lively Set: "There's Nothing Like Coffee"
Straight Ahead Records single, 1966


Sascha Burland, who cowrote this tune, was a jazz musician who earned a living writing commercial jingles, cartoon music, and novelty songs like this one. Burland and his frequent collaborator Don Elliott recorded as The Nutty Squirrels, a jazzed-up response to the Chipmunks.


An Abundance of Bizarro



  

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Saturday, April 13, 2024

The Sincerest Form of Mockery

This is the weekly dispatch from Bizarro Studios North, where I have been writing and drawing the Monday through Saturday Bizarro comics since 2018. My partner and friend Dan Piraro created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.

Wayno


Welcome to this year's first post-eclipse blog entry.

Here in Hollywood Gardens, PA, we witnessed a nearly total eclipse (with 97 percent coverage). We used proper eye protection and nobody was raptured, so it was a good day.

I realize that it wasn't the same as seeing totality, but if I had consistently received 97 percent on tests during my academic years, I'd have been ecstatic.

Last week, In recognition of the fifteenth anniversary of my first published Bizarro gag, Dan Piraro and I recorded a video chat where we talked about our first meeting, and how our partnership has evolved over the years. Our memories were fairly consistent, and we didn't say anything embarrassing, but we could have been clearer on who does what. We may cover that in our next video.


Faithful Jazz Pickle Danielle A. hipped me to this somber pipe pic, originally published in the Toronto Daily Star.


The model is future actor Alan Alda at age two. According to Alda's 2005 memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed:

A photographer from the Toronto Daily Star came backstage, and my father got the idea that if he posed me in a way that made me look as if I were smoking a pipe, the paper would be sure to print the picture and the burlesque company would get some unusual publicity. They dressed me up in my woolen suit and posed me gravely holding a pipe with tobacco in it. They seem to have invented a new name for me, too. I was born Alphonso D'Abruzzo, but that day I was Alphonse Robert Alda, "Ali" for short.

Big thanks to Danielle for this tidbit of showbiz history tidbit.



Here's the totality of this week's Bizarro dailies, which can be viewed without any protective gear.



Personally, I'd like to see their imitations of each other.


Tuesday's panel intentionally omitted the Dynamite of Boom Secret Symbol. That guy doesn't need any additional hazards.


I'll go out on a limb and claim that the expression "pipe down" originated in or near Scotland.


Everything at their place is big and fancy. Imagine the chamber pot.

According to the National Archives, the commonly accepted but probably untrue story is that Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence was extra large so that "someone can read my name without spectacles."


This one's for my good buddy Tom, who's been exercising his brain by learning Welsh on the DuoLingo app. I love the gag, but drawing the expanded Scrabble board was an ordeal. It's almost the equivalent of four Scrabble boards grafted together. An actual board is 15 by 15 squares, and mine is 29 by 29, with the center row and column being areas of overlap. I just did the math and see that I drew 841 squares.

Although the board is insanely detailed, this panel is still rather sparse and contains no Secret Symbols. I thought they'd distract from the gag.


The black & white panel has a more dramatic look.


The strip layout shows less of the board, but I was able to make the tile racks ridiculously wide.

My first sketch took a different approach, but I scrapped it for the Scrabble version, which had a funnier drawing and a punchier caption.


I also discovered that a Welsh language version of the game exists. Its board is a standard 15 by 15 grid, and some tiles have double letters or two-letter combinations.


We finished the week with a bit of silly medical wordplay.


Thanks for reading the comics and blog. Come by again next Saturday for more of this kind of stuff.


Bonus Track

Clarence "Frogman" Henry
"Ain't Got No Home"
Originally released in 1959
by Argo Records

A giant of New Orleans music, Clarence "Frogman" Henry died this week at age 87. His first record gave him the nickname he carried for the rest of his life. 

Frogman was a terrific entertainer. We saw him perform outside of New Orleans in Metairie, Louisiana sometime in the 1990s, and he was a hurricane of joy and fun.


A Boatload of Bizarro



  

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Saturday, April 06, 2024

Jamsplaining

This is the weekly dispatch from Bizarro Studios North, where I have been writing and drawing the Monday through Saturday Bizarro comics since 2018. My partner and friend Dan Piraro created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.

Wayno

Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

A friend shared these words from Vonnegut's book God Bless You, Mister Rosewater in response to recent events that I won't discuss here. 

The longer I'm around, the more sense this sentiment makes.

The other day I took a rare break from the drawing table to meet a friend for coffee and conversation. We learned interesting things about each other and helped one another in a few small ways. After spending ninety minutes out of the studio, I felt energized and got more work done than on a "normal" day.

Sharing time with people you care for is truly a kindness to them and to yourself.

I'm keeping the intro brief this week because I'm exhausted from filing our taxes. Although I have someone who wades through the documents and prepares our returns, there's still enough math to wipe me out. Not to mention anxiety caused by the fear of missing a signature line.

Thank the gods we have specialists for this stuff!


Blog reader Ian sent this pipe-related photo from almost a hundred years ago, and I'm pleased to share it with you.

Mondrian's Glasses and Pipe
 André Kertész, 1926

Aside from the pipe, Mondrian had some stylish spectacles, didn't he?


A tip of the Bizarro porkpie to Ian. I wasn't familiar with André Kertész, and appreciate the art history lesson.


For more contemporary and less historic art, let's check out this week's Bizarro comics.



My April Fools' Day gag includes a bogus symbol count. In fact, there are only four Secret Symbols in this panel. The number wasn't random, though. This cartoon is the 1,967th I've written and drawn since I started doing the Bizarro dailies.


The terms of investment are cash on the barrelhead.


Someday, I should compile a book of my inanimate object comics. This tabletop drama is the most recent example, but it won't be the last.


She busted me with science.


After a long workday, it's nice to shed the aloha shirt and relax.


I imagined them chilling out in formalwear because anything more casual than their work clothes would tend toward nudity.

If you spot this panel in the wild, particularly at your local Trader Joe's, I'd appreciate it if you could snap a photo. Oh, and grab yourself a container of the triple ginger snap cookies. Trust me on that.


One eternal question is answered, while the other remains a mystery.

That's my cartoon output for the first week of April. I hope some of these trifles amused you. 


We'll return next Saturday with another selection of humorous words and pictures. Thanks for joining us.


Oh, yes, and don't stare at the eclipse without proper eye protection.


Bonus Track

The Jam: "But I'm Different Now"
From the album Sound Affects
Polydor Records, 1980





Bizarro in Abundance



  

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Saturday, March 30, 2024

Habeas Lepus

This is the weekly dispatch from Bizarro Studios North, where I have been writing and drawing the Monday through Saturday Bizarro comics since 2018. My partner and friend Dan Piraro created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.

Wayno

I’m a great believer in conversation as part of the artistic process.
Pete Townshend

I was delighted to find this quote from a favorite musician in a recent New York Times interview.

I'll keep today's intro brief, and offer thanks to Mr. Townshend for justifying my penchant for talking about the ins and outs of making comics. Oh, and gratitude to all who read the blog and newsletter. Your comments and questions are always welcome.


I don't remember where I found today's pipe pic, but Easter weekend is the perfect time to share it.



I believe the image came from a children's book. If you recognize it and know the source, please send a comment so I can credit the artist. And let me know if they're about to play tennis or go snowshoeing.

UPDATE: Some knowledgeable readers (see the comments section) have identified the artist as Lowell Hess (1912-2014). Hess was a prolific illustrator with an appealing mid-century Little Golden Book style as exemplified by the charming bunnies shown above (from the book My Christmas Treasury). While searching for examples of his work, I also found several wonderful two-color images that remind me of some Charley Harper illustrations. He was no slouch when it came to caricatures, either.

Thanks to the Bizarro community for hipping me to Lowell Hess.


Let's see if any bunnies turn up in this week's gags.



The childhood hours I spent watching Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons paid off with this gag, although it's more of a reality tale.


The Amazon Prime business model's influence continues to expand.


Ben Franklin said, "[i]n this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," so Death paying taxes seemed a likely occurrence.


Side effects of this treatment may include hallucinations and a 1960s earworm.


Your cartoonist was on an Easter egg roll when writing gags in February, as evidenced by the second bunny panel in a row. 


In fact, we pulled off an Easter Bunny hat trick with three consecutive rabbit gags. You know how they multiply.

And that wraps up another round of cartoons from yours truly. Thanks for your kind attention. 


Please stop by next week to check out our April Fools' Week offerings.


Bonus Track

Wendy Rene: "Bar B Q"
Stax Records, 1964



The arrival of sunny spring weather makes me think of outdoor cooking and this catchy number by soul singer Wendy Rene.

Looking for more Bizarro? Here you go.



  

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