Saturday, January 11, 2025

Grim Repairer

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



The second week of 2025 brought snow and temperatures in the teens to Bizarro Studios North. The snowfall wasn't catastrophic; it was just enough of an inconvenience that we had to bundle up and get out with our shovels four or five times in the last several days. 

I felt sorry for myself until I heard about the terrible wildfires in California. I realize that my complaints are mere whining, and my thoughts are with everyone affected by the fires and smoke out west. The dark clouds gathering this year are not only metaphorical.

If we have additional snowfall, I'll just shut up and shovel.



This impressive mural comes to us courtesy of Bizarro reader Grieg T.


While driving around France, Grieg's friend Howard snapped photos of strange pipe-themed paintings on buildings. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact location or artist.



Despite the frigid temperatures, we produced our usual quota of cartoons, which we now present for your amusement.


Famously anonymous or anonymously famous?


You have to wonder if the brothers' coffee is laced with Benedictine.


A Sisyphean existence is bad enough without being mocked by a children's song.



Because I can't stop looking things up, I learned that a question mark can also be called an eroteme.


The outfit was a dead giveaway.


Gag cartoons often rely on the reader to create a visual in their mind's eye.

That's the latest from my Little Shop of Humor.

I experimented with next week's daily Bizarro comics (Monday through Saturday). All six are structurally similar and thematically related, and I'm curious to see how they resonate with our readership.
 


Bonus Track

Snakefinger: 
"The Model"
From Chewing Hides the Sound
Ralph Records, 1979



Monday's gag reminded me of Snakefinger's version of the Kraftwerk song "The Model." Born Philip Charles Lithman (1949-1987), Snakefinger collaborated frequently with the Residents. I saw him perform a handful of times with the Residents and his own band

I also had the chance to hang out with him during one of his visits to Pittsburgh and found him to be a soft-spoken and charming gent. 


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Saturday, January 04, 2025

Now We Are Seven

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



Well, my friends, we made it through another year of cartoons. In 2024, I released 314 Bizarro daily panels into the wild. That's a whole lot of clowns, cowpokes, cave folk, grim reapers, dogs, and cats. After seven years at the drawing board, I love it more than ever. My collaborative partnership with Dan Piraro is the best working relationship I've ever had.

Since January 1, 2018, I've spewed out 2,251 gags. Watch for a new photo of the pile of archival storage boxes soon.

As the Year of the Snake Oil Salesman advances, I hope our comical output will provide moments of relief from the chaos and madness that will surely come.



Faithful Bizarro buddy Petri V. of Waterloo, Ontario, spotted a pipe-smoking monkey in a Simpsons clip.



Petri writes:

I recently read an article linked to a short Simpsons clip on YouTube. The clip features a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, feverishly typing away (in shackles, no less!) in Mr. Burns’s mansion. I noticed that one of the monkeys was smoking a pipe, so I thought I might suggest it as a pipe pic candidate. I took the liberty of taking a screenshot.

Please note that sharing this video is not an endorsement of the forced labor of monkeys.

Thanks for the screen capture, Petri!




I referred to last week's pipe pic as an example of "Nephew Art" and explained it as well as I was able, but I couldn't recall who originated the term.


Fortunately, Dan Piraro commented:

For some reason, I think "nephew art" may have been the invention of one of our idols, B. Kliban. I'm not sure why I think that, and I may be totally wrong.

Thanks to Dan's powers of recollection, I located the source. Click on the image to see an enlarged version. (This applies to all photos in the blog).

Every year on National Cartoonists' Day (May 5), cartoonists share Kliban's famous "Out of the way, you swine!" panel.


January 1 would have been Kliban's 90th birthday. He died in 1990 at the too-young age of 55, but his brilliant work continues to endure and inspire.



We'd never have a club-wielding cop threaten anyone, so we'll just say, "Excuse us, but there's a new week of Bizarro cartoons coming through."


Who can resist the playful charms of Bettie Kilowatt?


This character is doing "Involuntarily Dry January."


New Year's Day marked the fourth birthday of the Pipe of Ambiguity Secret Symbol, which honors Bizarro's patron surrealist, René Magritte.


That reminds me: the official Pipe of Ambiguity T-shirt is one of the fun items in the Comics Kingdom Bizarro collection



The Ferryman of Hades doesn't get many repeat customers.


This still happens to cartoonists every day.


An alternate battle cry in the Marvel Universe is, "Avengers commiserate!"

That concludes the latest selection of rectangular humor from your (lone) ink monkey at Bizarro Studios North.


Bonus Track

Ken Bishop's Nice Twelve: 
"Subterranean Homesick Blues"
From The Young Ones
BBC2 TV, 1984



Online chatter about the current Bob Dylan biopic prompted me to share this fun cover version, performed by a fictional band featuring Stewart Copeland of the Police along with Jools Holland, Chris Difford, and other members of Squeeze.


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Saturday, December 28, 2024

SpudBatZilla

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



Next week's blog entry will mark the opening of my eighth year of creating the daily Bizarro comics. I can scarcely believe it's already been that long at the job I wanted all my life. I still enjoy making cartoons daily and plan to keep at it for as long as you'll put up with me.

Earlier this year, I was honored to receive a Silver Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society for Best Newspaper Panel despite being nominated alongside Nick Galifianakis and Dave Blazek, two fantastic cartoonists. This award was a highlight of 2024 for me, and I managed to stumble through my acceptance speech without injury.


The entire awards ceremony is on YouTube. If you want to see a bunch of cartoonists dressed up (some wearing shoes and pants for the first time in months), you'll enjoy it.

A big bucket of year-end gratitude goes to all of you who read the comics daily and follow our blogs, newsletters, and social media postings. We tip our hats to you, the Bizarro cartoon community.

Thank you.



Warren W of Nipomo, California, provided our year-end pipe pic.



Warren writes:

I stumbled across this in a 30 October 1906 newspaper (Santa Barbara Morning Press, page 8), the illustration atop an advertisement for a Santa Barbara clothing store, "The Great Wardrobe." 


For several years in that era, the store published these ads weekly, each with a different cartoon atop, artist anonymous, always depicting a young man with googly eyes in different poses.


The drawing looks like a prime example of "nephew art." I didn't coin that phrase, but I can't find who did. It refers to something created by a business owner who doesn't want to pay a professional for design, art, or other services but has an employee who volunteers, "My nephew is pretty good at [service in question]." 
Still, this has a certain charm.


Thanks to Warren for the image and detailed information on its provenance.




This week's Bizarro cartoons include the requisite Santa gags, but the New Year's Baby will not appear in next week's batch.


Several toy-collecting friends have expressed an interest in a PotatoHead/Batman/Godzilla action figure, so this may not be a failure.



After the first billion or so houses, the temptation is impossible to resist.



On the other hand, the temporary spare requires no feeding or "yard cleanup."


Besides, mutts make the best canine companions.


He doesn't need the extra cash; he just likes saying "hi-fi wi-fi refi."


I wasn't going to use the "hair/heir" pun, but then I came up with the image of the mortified teen and the father-son outfits.

For those who are counting, none of the characters' headgear counts as the crown Secret Symbol.

That's the most recent cartoonery from my Little Shop of Humor. I hope you'll return next week as we face the multiple horrors and uncertainties of the New Year. We're all in it together.


Bonus Track

Dr. John: 
"I Walk on Guilded Splinters"
From Gris-Gris
Atco Records, 1968



I've been reading Two-Headed Doctor: Listening For Ghosts In Dr John’s Gris-Gris, a fascinating book-length examination and history of this mysterious and compelling album.

An excerpt is available here.


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We don't love doing commercials, but it's now part of the job. As newspapers face an ever more perilous future, cartoonists must find supplements to help them stay in business. 

Many thanks for bearing with us.


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