Portraits & Landscapes

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

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When you deal with humorists, you deal with dynamite.

Harold W. Ross to E.B. White [Summer 1936]

I'm reading Defining New Yorker Humor, by Judith Yarros Lee, a professor at Ohio University recognized as a leading authority on American literary humor.

New Yorker founder Harold Ross wrote the words above to the future author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web eleven years after the magazine was launched. White was one of its earliest staff writers and contributed for almost sixty years.

I have yet to locate the context for this quote and wonder if it expresses appreciation or dread. Since Ross championed humor as a mission of TNY, I'm leaning toward the former. 

I hope to discover more about this quote later in the book. I've also contacted Dr. Lee to ask about it, and she will check her files to get a citation and perhaps more info on the context. 

I do know that humor often involves surprising the audience, not unlike a hidden stick of dynamite.

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Ron H. of Baldwin, Pennsylvania sends this photo of a lawn sculpture standing beside the front stoop of his home.

I was pleased to get a pipe pic from someone not far from Bizarro Studios North and am glad to know that Ron's home is protected from whatever gnomes protect us from.

Thanks, Ron! I'm at my studio window waving to you.

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Each of this week's cartoon panels presented its own challenge when being reformatted for the strip layout, so for this review, I'll show both versions of every gag.

A word of caution: When you read Bizarro, you'll most likely deal with some dynamite; not to mention pie, pipes, and UFOs.

A few readers asked if the bearded fellow was meant to be Tommy Chong. I didn't have him in mind, but I can see why someone might think that, man.

I kicked off the week with a relatively easy one to stripify. I merely had to crop in on the characters and reposition the flying saucer and pipe.

My favorite detail in this gag is the yo-yos using their strings to hold their beverages.

The strip reverses the staging, allowing me to place the word balloon and caption box on the same end of the layout.

My least favorite detail in this gag is that I undercounted the Secret Symbols. There are six, not five. Several readers commented or wrote to let us know, and we appreciate their attention to detail. 

Thanks to everyone who spotted the error. This is a reminder of why I didn't go into accounting.

My first thought was to have the stinkbug sing about being overshadowed by the arrival of a spotted lanternfly, but that's still a regional pest, so I went with the more familiar cicada.

I broke my rule about placing a word balloon and a dialog box in a strip because the art had enough open space to put them on opposite ends.

Vinyl trivia: "Stinkbug Blues" was the B-side of "I Put a Smell on You."

This seems logical, doesn't it?

I try to avoid reducing the art for strips since we don't control how small the comics appear in print. If this drawing had been reduced by even a little, the kiddie trike would've become an unrecognizable blob when reproduced on newsprint, so I chopped off the adult just below the shoulders.

A couple months ago I woke up wondering which type of sock puppet is more evolved. The debate rages on.

This one also required minimal shuffling.

Saturday's panel had the most extreme vertical spread of elements, and I expected it to be most difficult to reconfigure as a strip.

It didn't give me much trouble at all. After almost seven years on the job, maybe I'm learning to plan ahead.

I had fun creating obsolete magazines for the waiting room, even though some might be too small to make out in print. My favorite is the Yorker, which I imagined as the predecessor to the New Yorker.

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"Up the Irons!"

Here's Scott S., our latest t-shirt model, who reports:

I had purchased tickets to see Iron Maiden months ago for their Denver, Colorado show. When I read that I could be the proud owner of an Irön Bunnies t-shirt, it was the perfect opportunity to show support for two of my favorite art forms.

Rock on, Scott, and thanks for the great picture!

If you’d like to be a Bizarro fashion model, send your picture, along with a comment, to WaynoCartoons(at)gmail(dot)com.

Fine print: By sending your photo, you permit us to share it online. Readers will be identified by first name only. Whether or not you send a picture, we truly appreciate your purchase of Bizarrowear!

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Thanks for wading through my blatherings for yet another week.

See you next Saturday.

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Bonus Track

The Rolling Stones: Play With Fire

Decca Records single, 1965

"Play With Fire" was the B-side of the Rolling Stones' 1965 single "The Last Time." 

The Harold Ross quote about humorists brought it to mind.

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