Rounding the Cartoon Bases

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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Summer's flying by, so today we'll jump into the deep end with a new pipe pic. It's a baseball-related photo of the late George Lee "Sparky" Anderson. 

Faithful Bizarro reader John C, of Nipomo, CA, sent it along with a brief note:

Forwarding the pipe pic below of Detroit Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson. I always remember seeing him trying to hide a cigarette he was smoking in the dugout. I think this gives him a more magisterial air.

A few years ago, John also contributed a splendid photo of soul singer Fontella Bass.

A respectful tip of the hat along with a dangerously-low bow of thanks to John C for his longtime readership and support of comics, his sharp eye for pipe pics, and his impressive vocabulary. Magisterial, indeed!

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Here's what we found clogging the cartoon pool filter over the past week.

Readers of a certain age will recognize this sort of come-on as a regular part of their postal delivery.

Before anyone tells me that this isn't how snow peas work, I am aware. In the Land of Fairy Tales, where a single pea can be detected buried under twenty mattresses, a princess will literally feel cold when in contact with a snow pea. I know, it's a weird place.

This is the final cartoon from my recent cornucopia of crash test gags. There's also one more rejected sketch that will appear in my Substack newsletter.

The kid on the right recognizes the absurdity of the question, and just might grow up to be a Two-Dimensional Graphic Humor Technologist.

Our explorers should have stopped after a tiny sip, but engaging in risky behaviors is the strongest side effect of this beverage. A reminder to us all to drink responsibly.

You have to be a fast reader to get through an actual printed paper when underwater.

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Bonus Track

Stuart McKay & His Woods: "Take Me Out to the Ball"

from Reap the Wild Winds

RCA Victor LP, 1955 

Nodding to the Sparky Anderson photo and Thursday's outfield cartoon, here's a quirky arrangement of an appropriate song.

Stuart McKay (born around 1915) was one of history's few jazz bassoonists, and Reap the Wild Winds was his sole album as a bandleader. He played on a small number of other recordings, including a dozen in a group led by a guitarist named Brick Fleagle (really!)

This version of "Take Me Out to the Ball" is off-kilter from beginning to end, with three instrumental runthroughs followed by an out-of-sync vocal chorus that starts a couple of notes too soon, resulting in an abrupt, unresolved finish.

The album includes three well-known compositions and nine originals composed by pianist John Saunders, with oddball titles such as "Those That Live by the Swordfish Die by the Swordfish," "You're Just a Cucumber," and "Newton the Fig."

A McKay composition, "Burping Bassoon," was recorded by Eddie Stone and his Orchestra in 1938.

Most of the above information came from Many Fantastic Colors, a scholarly music blog.

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