Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts

Saturday, June 27, 2026

Please Tip Your Blockhead

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 

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In the introduction to his 1962 novel, Mother Night, Vonnegut speaks directly to the reader. The full quote follows.
This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
The novel takes the form of a memoir written by Howard W. Campbell, Jr., who broadcast virulent Nazi propaganda on German radio during World War II, but was actually an American spy. His scripted conversational asides provided intelligence to the US. 

Campbell eventually realizes that while helping the Allies, his convincing performance as a propagandist was a likely factor in convincing the Nazi recruitment effort in Germany.

I read most of Vonnegut's novels in my teens and twenties, and have recently been revisiting them. I recalled little of Mother Night, although I clearly remember owning a paperback copy. It was probably well over my head at the time.

The self-delusion of the Campbell character reminds one of a presidential Cabinet that, along with their senators and congresspeople, pretends that lawlessness and racism are okay if it helps them keep their jobs.

The daily news is full of examples, and one that particularly struck me was about the Treasury Secretary displaying a proposed $250 bill bearing the current president's mug shot. The Secretary knows that Federal law bars a living person from appearing on US currency, but through clenched teeth and a shit-eating grin, he said, "I don't think that there's anything untoward about having the person who is President of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill."

At least Vonnegut's character was able to tell himself he was violating principles to serve a greater good. These charlatans only care about wielding power and enriching themselves by indulging the whims of a demented, irrational, money-grubbing hatemonger.

I don't regret rereading Mother Night, but after this, I'll need a bit of escapist literature.

Today's pipe pic is a column heading from TV Guide featuring a portrait of Cleveland Amory, who was a television critic for the magazine from 1963 to 1976.

Al Hirschfeld provided wonderful illustrations to accompany many of Amory's columns.
Click to embiggen

Amory was also an animal rights advocate, and in 1966, he founded the nonprofit Fund for Animals.

If Cleveland Amory were still with us, I'd assure him that no animals were harmed in the creation of this week's Bizarro cartoons.

We started off with a twist on the venerable desert island cartoon trope.

Automotive designers need to consider customer preferences, an idea I've explored in the past.

My friend Candi suggests that our cartoon protagonist should consider buying a Honda Element.

Romantic rejection can be a blessing, particularly if you're a mantis.

One might be tempted to call the character on the left a reverse centaur, but that wouldn't be accurate.

This is a reverse centaur, Greek mythology's most off-putting creature.

I apologize to Charles Schulz for imagining his character's eventual career choice. My favorite part of the drawing is the sign on the valet stand.

A hunter's camouflage can be stealthy or simply silly.

Thanks for visiting. Drop by next week for more cartoons and commentary. If you enjoy peeking behind the panel, check out my free Substack newsletter.

New Products For Summer


Good news for the fashion-conscious. The Comics Kingdom Bizarro Shop just added our new Summer Selection. We have coffee mugs, water bottles, insulated tumblers, and a bunch of new T-shirts, like Dan Piraro's exquisite Escher Cube design, shown above.

This double-clown coffee mug displays two wordless gags, so when you switch hands, you'll see a different clown.

There's much more merch in the shop. If you grab anything, we'd love to see photos of readers with their Bizarro booty.

Thank you for indulging a little hucksterism.

Bonus Track

The Quintet: "Salt Peanuts"
from Live at Massey Hall
Debut Records, 1953






 

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Saturday, May 16, 2026

The Dummy Trilogy

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 

You gotta have a hood for your engine. Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can’t escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.

Don van Vliet a/k/a Captain Beefheart

from his "Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing."


As someone who regularly wears a hat, the good Captain's advice caught my eye. When performing as part of a musical combo, I invariably wore a hat, and we all tried to look sharp onstage. 

The lid didn't make me a better instrumentalist (I've always been an advanced beginner at best) or singer, but dressing for gigs helped us focus. It put us into a more professional frame of mind and showed respect for our listeners.

Appearances can't make up for a lackluster performance, but optics can get the audience on the band's side before a note is played.

Beefheart was in good company. Thelonious Monk's advice for musicians included the note:

What should we wear tonight? Sharp as possible!


This intro doesn't have much to do with the blog's blog's cartoon content, but is offered as an amuse-bouche before the main course.

Our pipe pic of the week is an ancient magazine ad for the Freeman pipe.


The tagline, "A Clean Smoke for Clean People," is intriguing. Was it a coded message? And, really, how clean can you be when you're smoking a pipe?

I didn't wear a hat while drawing this week's Bizarro panels, but did put one on whenever I left the house.

For another two bucks a month, you can go ad-free.

Years ago, an acquaintance I ran into at a coffee shop looked across the table and said to me, "You have small wrists for a man." I don't remember how (or if) I replied, but that interaction bubbled up in my mind as I sketched a customer at a palm reader.

As my cartoon partner, Dan Piraro, recently said about another gag, "The brain is a labyrinth with a mind of its own."

In case you ever wondered what a near-death experience is like for a ventriloquist dummy, this is my best guess.

...apparently, that experience was very near.

When writing this week's batch back in February, the "Out of Dummy Experience" came to me first, followed by this one involving a ghost dummy and a ventriloquist medium. I decided there should be a funeral gag to link them, resulting in a midweek sort-of narrative.

The ghost is my favorite of the three, and like the first one, it has layers of weirdness.

The Greek gods all went by multiple titles, or epithets. Zeus had many dozens, including Zeus Ceraunius (of the Thunderbolt), Zeus Labrandeus (the Furious), and Zeus Palamnaeus (Punisher of Murderers), so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine Zeus Corrector Orthographiae.

Come by again next Saturday for more cartoons and commentary, and don't forget to put a hood on your engine.

Bonus Track

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band:
"I Love You, You Big Dummy"
from Lick My Decals Off, Baby
Straight Records (1970)


When Lick My Decals Off was recorded, the Magic Band included Art Tripp on drums and percussion, after a stint with the Mothers of Invention. Tripp also went by the names Ted Cactus, Ed Marimba, and "Artie with the Green Mustache." 

He was born in Akron, Ohio, grew up in Pittsburgh, and attended high school within walking distance of Bizarro Studios North. Our local recreation center still bears a plaque thanking Tripp's father for his financial support.

After retiring from music in the late 1970s, Tripp became a chiropractor. In a 2022 interview, he said, "With the possible exception of the movie business, the business of pop music is the most rotten there is."


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Saturday, February 28, 2026

The Honking of Hill House

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 

Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.

Cory Doctorow


The  American Dialect Society selected Doctorow's coinage as its 2023 Word of the Year, so I'm a little behind the times in sharing the above. Facebook was one of Doctorow's earliest illustrative examples of the word, with good reason.

In addition to the barrage of advertising, the constant grasping for payments to "boost" posts, the harvesting and marketing of our data, and countless other annoyances, at some point, Facebook quietly deleted part of every user's profile information.

Until recently, profiles had a section called "More details about you," or something similar. I don't recall the exact designation, and can't check because it's not there anymore. I used this section to archive favorite quotations from people I admire and thought of it as an interesting way to personalize my profile. I tried to look up one of those quotes the other day, and found that the section had disappeared. The first two paragraphs now appear in a section called "Privacy and legal info," but the majority of my entry is gone.

There are more important issues at play in current times. Indeed, our very democracy is in danger of terminal enshittification at the hands of a kleptocratic regime. 

A mundane inconvenience can sometimes be disproportionately enraging because it's a miniature representation of a bigger problem; in this case, greedy billionaires dictating what we're allowed to see or share.

I quickly got over the loss of text I'd collected and saved in the "more details" section. I would gladly have deleted it in exchange for the rights of our fellow humans not being trampled and stripped away as they have over the past year.

Thanks for indulging the cranky rambling intro. I may complain about the inconsequential, but I try to take a longer, optimistic view of big things, and I do what I can to make a difference and to support those who can have a larger impact.

Addendum the Introduction: We voted on Tuesday in a special election to fill a vacant seat for our district in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Our preferred candidate was a smart, dedicated, compassionate educator, and she won a beyond-decisive victory, by a margin of 81.7 percent to 18.3 percent of the votes cast. I'm hoping this local outcome will be a predictor of the upcoming primaries and midterms.

Our pipe pic model for this week is comic book writer and artist "Wild" Bill Everett, in a 1940s promotional photo for Timely Comics (later Marvel).

Eric S., a friend and fellow music fanatic, sent this my way.

Everett (1917-1973) is remembered for creating Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, and co-creating Daredevil, both for Marvel Comics. I'm not very well-versed in comic book history, and I asked Eric for his comments on Bill Everett.
He was one of several terrific Golden Age artists, still in their prime, who found themselves being derided by snot-nosed 60s kids because they didn’t draw like Jack Kirby. I enjoyed his work on The Hulk in Tales to Astonish, and I must say, he was my favorite Kirby inker. He foreshadowed Mike Royer’s approach.
A tip of the old porkpie to Eric for the cool photo and his thoughts on the artist.

Consider these Bizarro gags part of an ongoing "More details about me" segment.

What's an accordion if not a bigger, louder harmonica?

For some reason, I felt the characters had to be English tea ladies.


Facebook's AI didn't get the joke.

To me, it looks more like a Yukon Goldendoodle.


This drawing was based on actual places I worked at in the past, and although the characters depicted aren't busy, your cartoonist was ambitious enough to squeeze seven Secret Symbols into the panel.


Ancient Greek mythology meets twenty-first century entitlement.


Snow White has appeared in Bizarro many times over the years. She seems to have moved from a woodland cottage to an apartment at some point.

That's the latest bucket of yuks from my Little Shop of Humor. Thanks for taking a peek, and be sure to come back next Saturday for more of this sort of foolishness.

Bonus Track

Clifton Chenier: "Eh, Petite Fille"
From Bayou Blues
Specialty Records LP, 1971


All kidding aside, accordions are as cool as any other musical instrument, particularly in the hands of a master like Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco music. 

Bayou Blues was my first exposure to his music and was a revelation.

Black Snake Blues (Arhoolie Records, 1967) is my favorite Clifton Chenier album. The music is great, and it boasts a wonderful cover photo of Clifton with his brother Cleveland on frottoir (rubboard). Clifton Chenier invented the instrument in 1946 while the brothers were working in an oil refinery. A co-worker named Willie Landry fabricated the first one, and it's now in the Smithsonian  Museum's permanent collection.


     

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Saturday, February 14, 2026

What's Your Jam?

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 

Some jokes are all joke.

James Booker (1939-1983)


With Mardi Gras coming up in a few days, my mind is on the people, food, culture, and music of New Orleans, America's finest example of the metaphorical melting pot.

James Booker was one of the city's quirkiest and most astounding musicians. I urge you to check out any of his recordings. Booker was the subject of a documentary, Bayou Maharajah, which is also worth seeing.

This week's blog will be a little briefer than usual, as I have some homework to do for a special project over the next several days. It'll have to remain hush-hush until the fall. It's not a huge thing, but it's important to me.

Bizarro field correspondent and blog reader Jim D. directed me to today's outdoorsy pipe pic. He saw it in a book and did a web search for the image, finding a postcard for sale on eBay.

The credit on the reverse side reads:
This dapper climber with pipe is climbing 8,906-foot Eagle Cliff Mountain in August 1963. Also attracted to the craggy outcroppings are eagles, falcons, kestrels, hawks, and turkey vultures. (Courtesy Rocky Mountain National Park, NPS.) 
Excerpted from Images of America: Rocky Mountain National Park, © 2008 Arcadia Publishing, Inc.
The unseen photographer's accomplishment is equally impressive.

Thanks to Jim D. for spotting this one!

I wonder what James Booker might have thought of this week's gags. Are the jokes all joke, or do some have more going on?

I wasn't the first to imagine a Disney/Kurosawa mashup, as I recently learned that a direct-to-video movie of the same title came out in 2024. It looks nothing like our version.


Some readers opined that there's not much difference between a good mime and a bad one, but I'm keeping quiet on the subject.


Fair warning: I may explore this angle again.

At Bizarro Studios, we're doing our part to make narcissism funny again.


It's generally advisable to eliminate unnecessary words from a cartoon's dialogue, but some gags call for verbosity.


I like the joke, but drawing this panel was much more challenging than I'd anticipated.

Thanks for looking at these boxes of words and pictures.

I wish you a happy Valentine's Day, a festive Mardi Gras, and, as the Year of the Horse arrives on Tuesday, twelve months of health, happiness, peace, and prosperity.

Bonus Track

Fats Domino: "So Swell When You're Well"
from Fats is Back
Reprise Records, 1968


New Orleans legend Fats Domino recorded this James Booker composition, with Booker playing piano on the session. Aretha Franklin also did a great cover of "So Swell" on her 1973 album Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky).


     

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