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
I only take a drink on two occasions—when I'm thirsty and when I'm not.
Brendan Behan
It's the weekend of that annual holiday of public urination and viridescent projectile vomiting.
Since St. Patrick is celebrated for ridding Ireland of "snakes" (code for non-Christians), there's supposedly a church-authorized pause in Lenten sacrifice for believers to get blind drunk in his honor.
Irish culture is vibrant and involves much more than the frat party that's as close as many people get. That reminds me that I ought to revisit Brendan Behan's autobiographical novel Borstal Boy.
The holiday does, however, provide rich fodder for cartoonists.
Today's pipe pic is taken directly from one of this week's Bizarro panels.
Leprechauns are often depicted smoking inverted clay pipes, and according to a cursory web search, people might do that for several reasons: It's more easily lit in rain and winds, and the rain doesn't extinguish the tobacco. Of course, it would have to be tightly packed.
With that bit of knowledge in our heads, let's check out all six of this week's Bizarro cartoons.
An online expert informed me that the horseman's helmet wasn't "historically accurate." I'm still processing that one.
He's going to need a bigger net.
MacD is on to the workings of the Deep Farm.
Nutrias are notoriously uncooperative witnesses.
This is what happens when people are forced to return to the office.
The tickling sensation is the body absorbing antioxidants.
Pot o' Cartoon Gold
As a break from Lent, here's a feast of Saint Patrick's Day gags from the past, including a couple of old WaynoVision panels.
If you observe the holiday, please celebrate responsibly. I'll be here at home and may partake of a Guinness or two.
See you next week with more shenanigans.
Bonus Track
The Undertones: "Teenage Kicks"
Originally 45 released in 1978 by Good Vibrations Records
Legendary BBC disk jockey John Peel said "Teenage Kicks" was his favorite song of all time. It's a choice that's hard to argue with.
A Whole Lotta Bizarro
If you like what we do and appreciate that it comes to you free of charge, we encourage you to explore any or all of the following links.
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, who created Bizarro in
the late twentieth century, continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho
Bizarro in Mexico.
Wayno
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
Charles Dickens, from A Christmas Carol
Despite being decidedly non-religious, I admit to a paradoxical love of old-school gospel music (which gave birth to rock & roll, after all), and Charles Dickens's perennial holiday tale. The quote above, describing a festive gathering at the home of Scrooge's nephew, articulates one of the reasons we cartoonists do what we do. The hope is that our words and pictures provide moments of amusement as respite from the unpleasantness we're all aware of and deal with daily.
Washington Post columnist Kate Cohen published a thoughtful opinion piece this week about the subtext of different holiday greetings, which made perfect sense to this reader. (The link should work for anyone, even those who don't subscribe to WaPo.)
For
those who celebrate it, today we wish you a Merry Christmas Eve. For
all of us, I'm borrowing a wonderfully inclusive phrase from a good friend and saying, Happy Everything.
This week's pipe pic is a sinister depiction of Frosty the Snowman from the cover of a 1951 Little Golden Book.
That image would've given me nightmares as a kid, and I'm not ruling them out now.
I'm fairly sure this week's comics won't creep you out.
There have been tons of gags about coffee shops mangling people's names on their orders, and many readers latched onto the fact that Satan and Santa are anagrams, but the intended payoff here was the drinks the characters are holding. I like the contrast between a foamy gingerbread peppermint concoction and a cupful of eternal damnation.
However, comics can be read and enjoyed in different ways, so if you dug the alphabetic shuffling, good on you!
I tried to make the pointed ears almost unnoticeable until after the reader sees the caption.
Speaking of Dickens, here's a Scrooge gag with a French accent.
In the strip version, Bob holds a shorter scarf, and the staging is reversed to allow the balloon and caption to be placed on the same end of the layout.
Here's an alternate narrative from the Little Tarnished Book collection.
Sometimes a gag is simply fun to draw. That was certainly true of these spiny critters and their construction project.
I think I prefer this one as a strip form.
Pie is nice, too, isn't it?
As with the Scrooge gag, this one had to be flipped horizontally to accommodate the word balloon and caption box, while leaving room for the drawing.
That's the latest from Bizarro Studios North, friends. Drop by again next week as we close out another year. In the meantime, I invite you to visit our related locations:
Dan Piraro's Bizarro Blog Another spectacular Sunday Bizarro by mi amigo, plus his thoughts on matters large and small
Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter News from the studio, a clip from an upcoming gag, and an image from my archives
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, who created Bizarro in
the late twentieth century, continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho
Bizarro in Mexico.
Wayno
When it gets
down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The
establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make
you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle
you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor. John Lennon
Thursday, December 8 is the day John Lennon was murdered outside his New York City home in 1980. He was forty years old, which is stunning considering how much he achieved while he was alive. Lennon was a far from perfect human, and he'd be the first to acknowledge that. I recall hearing the news, and experiencing the empty feeling when someone whose work you knew since childhood is suddenly gone.
For many years, I wouldn't actively listen to the music of the Beatles, after a lifetime of hearing it all the time, in every possible context. I came back to it with renewed appreciation in 2009, when I bought a CD box set of their British albums in mono. Again, I was struck by the amount of music they released in just seven or so years.
Seeing the photos of Lennon, and the memories people have been posting on social media this week made me start over with their discography, and I'm enjoying that journey once again.
I don't have any profound thoughts to offer about this, it's just what I've been thinking about these past couple of days, and marveling at how works of art can affect us many different ways at various stages of our lives. I suppose I'm recommending that you consider revisiting some music, literature, or other art that you once liked but felt that you outgrew, and check it out again. If you have any interesting or surprising reactions, send me a comment about it.
Before we get to the cartoons, let's lighten the mood with a fun pipe pic sent to us by Bizarro reader David R, who snapped it at his local farm market.
Thanks, David! I love the market's highly specific instructions.
Now, here's the latest output from Bizarro Studios North.
The pool player on the right is meant to be a slimmed-down Jackie Gleason, who starred as Minnesota Fats in the 1961 film, The Hustler.
A real-life pool player named Rudolf Wanderone adopted the name Minnesota Fats after the film was released, claiming that the character was based on him.
My pre-Bizarro comic, WaynoVision also referenced the character, almost exactly seven years earlier.
When drawing Tuesday's panel, I had cartoonists James Thurber and Jules Feiffer in mind, and wished that my work could have a bit of the expressive looseness theirs exhibited. No luck there, but I do like the way it turned out.
Every time I write a gag involving ghosts, I think it'll be quick and easy to draw, and every time I spend almost as much time fussing over it and tweaking it as I do with any other comic.
This is most likely a common topic of discussion at movie studios, who in large part have themselves to blame for the situation.
For brevity's sake, the word balloon omits all of the vocal disfluencies.
For some reason, several of my recent comics were set around an open utility hatch, like this one or this one.
That wraps up another week of cartoonery from the Little Shop of Humor in Hollywood Gardens, PA. If you enjoy this blog, you might like to scope out our other web-based thingies:
Dan Piraro's Bizarro Blog His latest Sunday Bizarro page, along with nuggets of wisdom and observation
Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter More talk from me, a preview of an upcoming gag, and art, design, or photos from my past
James Booker "On the Sunny Side of the Street" from New Orleans Piano Wizard: Live! Rounder Records, 1983
As my dear friend, pianist, composer, and bandmate Tom Roberts likes to remind us, Dr. John described Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced."
I can't argue with that.
The pirate ghost comic prompted Tom to suggest a Booker bonus track this week.
It's Christmas Day, and to those of you who celebrate it, I wish you a happy one. We've sandwiched several holiday comics into this week's batch, because the season is so rich in mythology, and we're hoping some of these gags might generate greeting card revenue.
Since today is a holiday for so many, I'll do my best to keep things moving along quickly.
We open this post with a traditional pipe pic, as drawn by Thomas Nast (1840-1902).
The German-born artist is sometimes referred to as "The Father of the American Cartoon," and was famous for his biting editorial work criticizing New York Senator William "Boss" Tweed. Nast was largely responsible for creating the popular American vision of Santa Claus, whom he usually depicted with a pipe.
Perhaps one day, Bizarro's own Pipe of Ambiguity will achieve iconic status. Until then, we'll keep placing it in our comic panels. There's probably one somewhere in this most recent bunch.
A friend told me that Monday's panel was "batshit crazy," and I can't argue with that description.
For the Winter Solstice (a popular holiday at my house), we shared a bit of meteorological verse, referencing the popular and widely parodied poem, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas."
I did a gag based on the familiar verse a few years ago in my old feature, WaynoVision.
By the way, our official policy is that any recitation of this poem using an exaggerated regional dialect and local idioms should be banned as a form of torture.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if a certain self-dealing senator followed Santa's example and gave our planet a lifesaving gift?
Everybody in the world assumes they should receive gifts on this poor guy's birthday.
As someone who writes a medium-to-long blog post, as well as an email newsletter, every single week to talk about what he's done over the past seven days, I have to acknowledge the irony in my making fun of those annual holiday letters.
I haven't checked into a hotel in a couple of years, but I think I remember what a registration desk looks like.
Saying that something is "on the fritz" is an American idiom meaning that the thing referenced is broken or not working properly. It's origins are murky, but it may have been imitative of the sparking sound of a broken electric appliance.
That's our Xmas Week selection, dear readers. I'll be back with a new post on January 1, as we jump into another Bizarro year. New Year's Day will be the start of my fifth year as your daily cartoonist, which for me is a pretty swell holiday gift. I hope you continue to enjoy our words and pictures. Thanks for sticking with me this far.
Don't forget to visit Dan Piraro's blog. He's always got interesting things to say about our comics and other topics, along with a gorgeous Bizarro Sunday page. This week, Dan said some very nice things about our ongoing partnership, and even made me blush a little. I would add that he's a dream to work with, too.
Best wishes for whatever holidays you observe.
Bonus Track
The Kinks: "Father Christmas" Arista Records single, 1977
The blog and newsletter are always free, but gratuities are welcomed.
My week has been fairly productive, and I'm happy to be catching up on the few days I took off for Thanksgiving. We'll jump right into things with our pipe pic for this week. It's a dignified shot of the great Dizzy Gillespie.
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917 - 1993) needs no introduction, but that jacket he's wearing made me quote a Warren Zevon lyric: "I'd like to meet his tailor."
Let's see whether anyone as cool as Diz turns up in our latest batch of gags.
This one attempts to explain why pigeons are sometimes called "rats with wings."
Tuesday's panel features a frequent Bizarro protagonist in a favorite setting. The Monster is a rich comic character, and tattoo parlors offer plenty of space for multiple Secret Symbols.
As I've mentioned in the past, I have no tattoos, but that Sluggo design reminded me of a couple I might consider if I were to get one.
Our gag for Wordplay Wednesday includes a pun and alliteration.
My destination of choice would be Hoboken, since it actually exists.
On Thursday, we presented a scene from the gripping courtroom drama, Hood vs Wolf.
Do music executives with gold records on their office walls still exist?
The week ended with our first Christmas cartoon for 2021. We held out as long as we could, but the season is upon us, and we conceded.
If I'd done the strip version in its normal horizontal configuration, it would've been a lot of blank space with a tiny drawing of the officer, so I opted for a vertical layout.
This is how it appeared in newspapers who carry Bizarro in its alternate format, but we've rotated the image for easier reading.
That's the weekly wrap-up from Bizarro Studios North. Thanks for visiting.
For additional commentary, plus a spectacular Sunday Bizarro page, pop on over to Dan Piraro's blog.
Bizarro in the Wild
Sharp-eyed reader Danielle A sent us this terrific photo taken in the United Nations Gift Shop in San Diego's Balboa Park.
Lovingly taped to a shelf of Russian matryoshka dolls are four Bizarro comics and, on the far left, an old WaynoVision comic. WaynoVision was my solo feature before I closed up shop to become Bizarro's daily cartoonist. That particular panel has been shared (and stolen) more than any of my other gags.
If you spot a Bizarro comic in the wild, please send a photo, along with location info. You be in on the ground floor of a new hobby.
Thanks again, Danielle!
Bonus Track
Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong "Umbrella Man" from The Timex All Star Jazz Show CBS TV, January 7, 1959
Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, Gillespie and Armstrong carried on a public feud, going so far as to mock each other on record (Gillespie's "Pops' Confessin' and Armstrong's faux-bop "Whiffenpoof Song") and, more aggressively, in interviews.
Their relationship changed for the better in the late 1950s, after, they became neighbors in Queens, New York.
Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, describes this beautiful clip in his 2020 book, Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong:
Armstrong and Gillespie grew to be close friends and eventually buried the musical hatchet with their immortal televised duet on "Umbrella Man" in 1959, neither man giving an inch or changing anything about their individual, groundbreaking styles. But in the second half of the performance, both men also revel in their natural talents as singers, showmen, and comedians, inducing waves of laughter from the studio audience just seconds after dazzling them with their virtuosity.
Mr. Riccardi's deeply-researched book is highly recommended, and makes a strong case for reevaluating a period of Louis Armstrong's career that some critics dismissed. This reader certainly gained a greater appreciation of Armstrong's big band recordings. I'm especially grateful for being directed to this video, showing genuine affection and respect between these two giants.
The blog and newsletter are always free, but gratuities are welcomed.
