Infinite Recession

Welcome back to the old blog, Jazz Pickles. We have quite a few extras in store this week, so let's jump right in with a charming pipe pic.

This delightful family photo comes to us courtesy of Bizarro reader (and New Yorker caption contest winner) Paul N, who is one of the children in the picture. Paul's father channels the classic mid-century suburban dad as he poses with his brood while proudly clenching his pipe. In Paul's family, this photo is known as "My Mother the Centaur."

Our sincere thanks go out to Paul for sharing this wonderful image.

Now, we present a review of the visual offerings from the week in Bizarro.

Monday's panel reminds us that human activities can have unexpected and far-reaching consequences.

This gag was well-suited to the strip layout. When I wrote it, I realized that we'd see more of the vehicle in the strip version, so I planned for that when preparing the art.

My original art usually looks quite different from the finished comics. I draw by hand, with ink on paper, but much of what ends up in the published cartoon is created digitally. I normally start with the paper oriented vertically, but I wanted to draw a winder image to accommodate the strip layout, so I turned the paper sideways.

The raw art includes blue and red pencil lines, scribbled dialog, a sequence number (this was the 1,137th drawing since I started as Bizarro's daily cartoonist), and a stamped date to document its completion. All of this stuff is removed later.

I open the scan in Photoshop, clean it up, drop it into a blank panel template, digitally draw whatever else is needed, and add text and color.

That's a quick overview of how Bizarro brand comedy sausage is made.

Tuesday's image and dialog were reverse engineered to illustrate the punny caption. Unsurprisingly, more than a few readers got into arguments on social media about which news organization they imagined I was referring to. As a hint, think of those who claim merely to be offering opinions and asking questions when called out for spreading dangerous lies.

We followed up with an uncontroversial but slightly gross cat joke. The magazine shown is actually called Nip Aficionado, but the full name would have been illegible at a reduced size.

I believe that a measure of silliness is crucial to one's spiritual well-being.

You should, however remove your clown shoes indoors.

A simple idea that turned out to be a bit of a pain to draw. I nearly drew it with the bald spots creating the fractal pattern, but quickly realized that would have been impossible to pull off.

With a week including cats, a clown, and Bigfoot, we scored a trifecta of our favorite comedic subjects. All that's missing is a cowboy. 

Award yourself bonus points if you got the reference on the youngster's t-shirt, or were curious enough to google it.

Thanks for stopping by. Remember to visit Dan Piraro's blog to see what's on his hyperactive mind this week, and to check out his latest magnificent Sunday Bizarro page.

And, since I'm offering links, I also invite you to subscribe to my recently-launched newsletter. Each newsletter provides a link to the latest blog post, and also includes an exclusive look at whatever I'm working on at the time of writing. You can also unsubscribe at any time.

Bushmiller Update

 

Last week's pipe pic (above) was an isolated panel from a Nancy comic. We never found the complete strip, but FoB (Friend of Bizarro) Hank E alerted us to another Nancy strip using the same punchline.

I know that Bushmiller sometimes recycled comics, because I've seen original art with the date whited out and replaced with a later date. In this case, however, it appears that he drew an entirely new strip for the same gag. 

Thanks to Hank, and to legendary underground comix artist and publisher Denis Kitchen for releasing several book collections of Bushmiller's work. 

In the early 1990s, I was fortunate to see much of my early comics work appear in some of Denis's publications, which was, and remains a thrill.

The strip shown appeared in the Kitchen Sink Press book, Nancy Dreams and Schemes.

Bonus Track

Professor Longhair: "Bald Head"
from the album Crawfish Fiesta
Alligator Records, 1980

Henry Roeland Byrd (1918-1980), better known as Professor Longhair, was a unique and important figure in American music, and was a major influence on many musicians in New Orleans and around the world, including Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and James Booker. This album was released shortly before his death at age 61.

Everything he recorded is worth a listen.

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