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
Never let anybody put a tool in your hand, kid.
"Uncle Jimmy"
"Uncle Jimmy"
For a couple of summers in my youth, I worked for a neighbor's "decorating" business. Most of what we did was house painting, along with a bit of light demolition, and occasionally we were hired to empty out a house that a deceased owner had left full of stuff their family didn't want.
During one of our "tear-out" jobs, I was holding a kitchen cabinet in place while a coworker loosened the bolts attaching it to the wall. That was when "Uncle Jimmy," the older guy on the crew, offered advice about tools as he rolled a cigarette. I never knew his last name or whether his first name was really Jimmy. I got the impression that he had a shady background, but he was enjoyable to work with.
I thought of Jimmy on Monday, when my spouse and I spent the day doing outdoor work, ignoring his wisdom. We were replacing a border along the edges of our sidewalk. We built it years ago using the parts from a kit meant to make a foot-high raised garden bed. I spent most of the day on my knees, moving dirt and pounding spikes into the ground, and the rest of the time loading debris into a small dumpster.
I returned to the studio Tuesday morning with renewed gratitude for being able to make comics for a living using artists' tools, rather than hammers, shovels, and saws.
The job with the neighbor's business wasn't all punishing labor. The boss treated us to breakfast every morning at a greasy-spoon diner owned by his aunt and uncle, and two guys in their late 20s on the crew shared their "herbal supplements" with their teenage coworker.
At one of the house cleanouts, I found a cool 1930s book about dirigibles, and a One-a-Day vitamin bottle that had been filled with mercury. I had that for a long time, and would spill it out on a sheet of paper to watch it roll around. I'm lucky to have avoided neurological or kidney damage.
When I told my cartoon partner, Dan Piraro, about my salvaged treasures, he said, "I remember playing with mercury from a broken thermometer when I was a kid. I was fascinated with rolling it all around and trying to pick it up. Jeez!" Surviving the use of a toxic element as a toy is yet another thing Dan and I have in common.
My day of landscaping and the memories of many horrible summer jobs reminded me to thank all of you Bizarro readers for enabling me to have a career that may sometimes give me eyestrain but never leaves me with aching muscles or mercury poisoning.
Today's pipe pic is a 1958 shot of Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, taken in New York.
 |
| Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation |
A tip of the hat to Monsieur Duchamp for so much artistic inspiration.
No harmful chemicals were used in the creation of the latest Bizarro cartoons.
You can trust the symbol on the sack.
I've done quite a few gags about awards ceremonies, which are easy to make fun of until you're nominated for something.
I had fun drawing and coloring the Apex Predator award, although it was probably too small to read in newspapers.
"You've got the part as soon as you're cleared by Spell Check."
Friday's offering was another of my inanimate-objects-as-characters gags.
I chose 2,645 for the number of bricks because this panel was the 2,645th one I've drawn since I started the daily comics in 2018, and I did some math to arrive at what I hope is a believable weight.
I'll share another half-dozen Laff-O-Grams next Saturday, and I do hope you'll drop by to check them out.
For more insight into a cartoonist's brain, you might enjoy my free Substack newsletter.
Bonus Track
Graham Parker: "Mercury Poisoning"
Arista Records Single, 1979
An Embarrassment of Bizarro Riches
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore the following links.
Great strips this week as always, Wayno! Thanks for all you do to keep us nyuks in yuks. I had to chuckle at your mercuric memories which I think most boys of a certain age have shared. In my case, my older sister gave me a vial of mercury as a toy when I was about 9. So far all body parts are still working as designed despite her unintentional attempt at poisoning.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave. It's a shame that something that poisonous is so damned fascinating.
DeleteWhen I was a kid, my dad and some of his friends used to pan for gold (in the California foothills). I remember one technique for extracting the flakes was to mix in mercury, then put the mercury in a frying pan to evaporate it off and leave the gold. In retrospect, it's probably lucky we didn't all get brain damaged.
ReplyDeleteYikes!
DeleteRecently, our family visited the The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Our daughters did an interactive event where you are an Oscar winner and get to mimic receiving the award in front of a cheering audience. There is a replica Oscar to hold. That thing is heavy as a gallon of milk. Good times.
ReplyDeleteIt would be fun to write an acceptance speech in advance and then visit the museum.
DeleteWhat makes you think you weren't brain damaged? Almost all of us of a certain age have some degree of brain damage from mercury and from lead in our toys. Not enough to be obvious, but a few points off the IQ can make a subtle difference. Might be interesting to sit back and imagine what our lives might have been like if we had left the mercury alone and kept our cast lead-alloy and lead painted toys away from our mouths. Not to mention the fingers that touched them.
ReplyDeleteGood point, and something I'd rather NOT think about, now that you mention it!
Delete:} -- i've been thinking about a few times that i was faced with a significant decision where the balance was almost a coin toss, and in retrospect, i made the wrong choice, and the difference would have been life altering. I like to say "my worst decisions led to my best things," but though i may now hate the thought that i would have missed people and places that are my favorite memories, and would have quite a different life now, in one direction or the other, I recognize that there would have been other people, other places, not necessarily better or worse, nor more, nor fewer. But the next couple of years could only have been better. I think. Maybe.
DeleteMy mom was a nurse and she would bring home thermometers that were being thrown out. So we had a small vial of mercury to play with. I bet that vial came from the hospital, too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, besides rolling that liquid metal around, we also would coat pennies with it. We had to either use new pennies or clean them up nice and shiny first. Then, we would dip them into the mercury and it would cost the penny immediately.
Good clean fun, and no after-effects.
My mom was a nurse and she would bring discarded thermometers home, ..... Am I repeating myself again?
Whoa, Marc! I never heard of the penny thing, which is guess is fortunate.
DeleteCirca 1963, 7th grade science class: passing hand-to-hand mercury AND asbestos. Of course in retrospect, the question is Why? It’s not as if we could learn anything by touching them…
ReplyDeleteYikes! Why indeed.
Delete