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
It’s not the notes you play—
it’s the notes you don’t play.
Miles Davis
As with any quote found online, it's best to mentally place the words "attributed to" before the named source, but I found this one cited in a New York Times article, which makes me tend to believe it.
Davis certainly allowed for empty spaces in much of his music, although a slightly different experience brought the words to mind.
I recently watched the 1972 film The Harder They Come, which brought back memories of seeing it at the old Pittsburgh Playhouse for the first time decades ago. I had probably heard some reggae music before then, but the movie sparked my interest.
It had been quite a while since I'd listened to the soundtrack album, so I reacquainted myself with that, too. The 1972 LP included a dozen selections (ten songs plus two alternate versions). A recent CD version has eighteen additional tracks, but I prefer the original forty-minute album. The extra material is excellent but unnecessary, and listening to it all in one go became a bit of a slog—the expanded music set was longer than the movie!
Creative work often benefits from economy, whether it's a record album, a painting, a food or cocktail recipe, or a cartoon. Leaving something out can let the remaining ingredients shine brighter.
Of course, I contradict that in my work every day. I try to pare away unnecessary elements, and then look for spots to tuck Bizarro's Secret Symbols into the art. What can I say? I'm a cartoonist, not an absolutist.
The Harder They Come also provided an unexpected pipe pic, which I shot from the TV screen.
This sourpuss is actor Bob Charlton, playing Hilton, a corrupt music producer who shortchanges and exploits Ivan, portrayed by reggae star Jimmy Cliff. Hilton is the only character in the film who smoked tobacco.
I hope this week's cartoons landed in the sweet spot between too much and not enough.
A little-known detail of Greek mythology is that Zeus forged his own cutlery.
Cartoonists will never stop searching for another take on an alien probing gag.
My initial sketch was flawed: The dialog is too wordy, it's not clear who's on the other end of the conversation, the sign on the door is amusing but not quite enough to carry the gag, and the drawing would be difficult to reformat for the strip layout.
Sketch number two (or O2) was a little better. This one was too horizontal to work as a panel, but the new dialog is addressed to the human subject and is just a little disturbing.
The final strip works even better than I'd hoped: As the eye moves left to right, the reader sees the nervous employee, the sign on the door, the long-fingered alien at the desk, and the punchline.
Some compositions are nearly impossible to turn into a conventional strip, which is when we take a ninety-degree turn.
The trickiest aspect of this gag was keeping track of the overlapping word balloons and their tails.
Nobody thinks of Scrooge for the other fifty-one weeks of the year, so I was pleased to feature him in September. This was, of course, based on the works of Carlos Dickens, who runs a killer food truck.
Friday's cartoon is a request to the automotive industry. When I try to do a "1" it sounds like a "6."
It was also the easiest strip conversion of the week.
My apologies for going far beyond dad joke territory. I suppose this is a great-granddad joke.
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That's the latest from my Little Shop of Humor in Hollywood Gardens, PA.
See you next week.
The Maytals: "Sweet and Dandy"
Beverly Records single, 1969
Half of the music in The Harder They Come was written and performed by Jimmy Cliff. The Maytals (later renamed Toots and the Maytals) contributed two songs to the soundtrack: "Pressure Drop" (later covered by the Clash) and this joyful number which I'd completely forgotten. The group is shown performing it in one scene.
Since my recent viewing of the film, I've caught myself singing or humming "Sweet and Dandy" more than a few times.
Bizarro Bonanza
In a similar vein to your Davis quote:
ReplyDelete“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Attributed to Pablo Picasso
Another good one to keep in mind.
DeleteToday's comics were most excellent! Great laff fodder! Thanks muchly!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Giggler!
DeleteOnce again you seem to have had the same influences that I did. The Harder They Come was shot on a budget of about 47 dollars and the whole cast, seemingly, was stoned right to the eyeballs. But in my opinion it's one of the best movies about music ever made. The director (I'm not looking it up) set up shots and angles and cuts that are still clear in my mind fifty years later, and the songs are golden, each and every one. Many of the singers clearly knew that the film was a shot at bigger fame, and they sang like it. Two thumbs way up, mon.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit on it about the performers knowing this would expose them to new listeners. The Maytals are killing it!
DeleteI want this horn. When I need a #4, I get a #1, but I really want a #6. Perhaps if there was a way that you could select both a #4 and a #6 to get a #10, this would indicate that the other driver should “put the phone down and drive.”
ReplyDeleteMaybe instead of separate buttons it could be a dial...
DeleteThe Renault Dauphine from the late 50's to late 60's had two horns, one for city and one for country.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that. Thanks!
DeleteA late friend of mine had 3 horns on her early-70s Volvo wagon, each with it's own switch. Coincidentally, I had a 2nd horn added to *my* early-70s Volvo (a 2-door sedan): a freakin' *airhorn!* that would definitely cover nos. 4-6 in the 'toon.
ReplyDelete*its (d'oh!)
ReplyDeleteI play the (original) Harder They Come soundtrack at least once per year, and the song you picked is one of my favs.
ReplyDeleteI won't wait so long to play it again!
DeleteThe two pipes, in the 9/8 cartoon, are cheating: neither one looks like the Secret Symbol Pipe of Ambiguity. I could give you the one in the left mid-ground because it's a similar kind of pipe, but the corncob pipe in the foreground doesn't look anything like the Secret Symbol one.
ReplyDeleteBut, but, but..... you miss the soul of existence of the "Secret Symbol Pipe of AMBIGUITY"
DeleteFrom Dan's Blog:
DeleteYou're not wrong, but to my mind, it's a gray area. We've never discussed it but Wayno and I have been operating with the general rule that the pipes are not being smoked or held by anyone. These "belong there" in the sense that they are from snowmen's outfits, but there are no humans to use them and they are out of place lying in a meadow. As I often say, it's an art more than a science. :^]
So, Mick, are you saying that *any* pipe counts as a Secret Symbol?
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily, as outlined in Wayno's quote of Dan's comment above, but the Pipe of Ambiguity -by definition-is the Pipe of the quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness.
DeleteWow. This takes the meaning of a Secret Symbol to a whole new level.
ReplyDelete