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
A good start is half the work. Brendan Behan
It's been a few years since I last read Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy, and I don't recall the context of this pithy quote, but I endorse the sentiment as I interpret it.
That brief sentence offers an encyclopedia's worth of advice for artists. The hardest part of creating art of any type is getting beyond the blank page. A meaningless scribble or a random word can serve as a springboard, sending the mind in unexpected creative directions.
Since Brendan kept it brief, I'll follow suit.
Onward!
Bizarro reader Richard H. sent me this charming photo of a dog with a stick that looks like a pipe.
WeRateDogs began as a social media account in 2015. In 2016, they posted a crowdfunding page for a dog in need of costly medical attention. Later, they established the nonprofit 15/10 Foundation, raising money to sponsor shelter dogs with behavioral or medical issues that made them less likely to be adopted.
Thanks to Richard for the photo, and to WeRateDogs and the 15/10 Foundation for showing us what can grow from a good start.
Late last year, I started these cartoons by making marks in my sketchbook and on Bristol paper.
My pal Dan McConnell is both a cartoonist and an orchardist. He had this to say about Monday's gag:
Excellent cartoon, Excellent pear, perfectly named. We grow Bartletts, Anjous and Bosc pears... [The leaves of] Bartletts are just as portrayed in you cartoon but a bit bigger. The spine of the leaf is straight.
Mr. McConnell is a sweet gent and one of the funniest people I know. He could have been a stand-up Comice.
Tuesday's gag was based on that classic TV show, The Fire-Breathing Gourmet.
They'll celebrate by snacking on corned beef jerky (which, I just learned, actually exists).
A snake visiting a psychologist is no less plausible than the traditional Saint Patrick legend.
As if they need reminding.
We got a couple of complaints that this panel was "political" or "editorial." If a little joke about an easily observable behavior among a certain overprivileged population strikes someone as political, I can only surmise that anything they read is filtered through an ideological lens.
One of the oddest culinary experiences of my life happened in Vermont. We were visiting good friends who brought us to a "Sugar on Snow" festival. The titular confection is made by heating maple syrup and drizzling it over a tray of snow, where it thickens into a taffy-like candy. It's served with plain donuts and dill pickles in a particular order, which I've forgotten. It's New England's answer to the salt, tequila, and lime ritual.
That's the latest output from Bizarro Studios North. I'd write more, but it's time to start boiling the cabbage. We'll return to this somewhat stable blogging platform next Saturday with a new bouquet of buffoonery.
Okay, my pint of stout has settled, so I really must go. Sláinte, mates.
Bonus Track
The Undertones: "My Perfect Cousin"
Sire Records single, 1980
A Pot o' Bizarro Gold
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore 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, created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.
Wayno
There is nothing worse than the obligation to be funny. Crockett Johnson
I'm currently reading a double biography with a lengthy title: Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature.
Johnson and Krauss, individually and in collaboration, created many classic children's books. Johnson is best known for the book Harold and the Purple Crayon. His quote about the obligation to be funny refers to his brilliant daily comic strip, Barnaby.
I suspect Johnson was speaking hyperbolically, and his famous perfectionism may have been a factor.
The strip ran from 1942 to 1952, and when Johnson began to concentrate more on children's books around 1946, the comic was drawn by artist Jack Morley and written by Ted Ferro. Unhappy with the storylines under Ferro, in 1947, Johnson returned to writing and making some sketches to guide Morley, who continued to draw the strip.
I wouldn't use the phrase "nothing worse" to describe the job, but one of the most difficult aspects of producing humor on schedule is the fact that you still have to be funny at times when you don't feel particularly lighthearted.
When dealing with personal difficulties, illness, or grief, it's harder to come up with jokes, and we have to dig deep to make others laugh, if not ourselves. It's more of an intellectual than joyful pursuit during those times.
To me, making cartoons is better than any other job or freelance gig I've ever had, and I'm grateful to be doing it.
A reader's laugh is a cartoonist's greatest reward.
Maybe Crockett Johnson should have tried drawing a happier version of himself using Harold's crayon. One hopes he realized that his work helped to make the world a little better for many people.
Bizarro field correspondent John H. of Wisconsin sent me today's pipe pic, an agricultural homage to surrealist René Magritte.
John wrote:
I lifted the pic from a Minnesota public radio news page reporting on the Minnesota State Fair. Seeds glued up to make pictures is apparently popular at the fair. Might be a midwestern farmer thing.
The term "seed art" made me think of Kurt Vonnegut's quote, "Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow."
A tip of the Bizarro feed-store cap to John for the photo, the background info, and the inspiring words from Vonnegut.
You can read the full story of "This is Not a Corncob Pipe" on MPR's site.
When I made this batch of comics back in December, I don't remember enduring any difficulties other than general angst over current events.
For those who've been there.
Friend and hometown dude Rob C. offered this comment:
So searingly accurate and one of your best, IMHO. I flee every arts-event Q&A before they even begin…
I'm blushing here, Rob!
The latest automotive technology is built with Artificial Abetting.
It's a good day for a cartoonist when they're able to squeeze out one more fly-in-the-soup gag.
March 5 was the day kidlit characters collided.
File this under "unintentionally timely." The gag, created last year, was inspired by a different set of questionable operations and evolving explanations.
I'd like to see the projects submitted for the Surrealism badge.
That wraps up another week of words and pictures from your humble ink-monkey. Drop by next week for some corned beef and a pint of stout, or at least another six-pack of cartoons.
Bonus Track
Pete Seeger: "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy"
from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour CBS Television, February 25, 1968
Bunches of Bizarro Booty
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore 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, 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.
A Boatload of Bizarro Blather
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore 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, created Bizarro in the late twentieth century and continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.
Wayno
An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person. Leo Tolstoy
Whether Tolstoy actually said or wrote this (I've yet to see a source cited), the words are valid. We can see examples everywhere. Some are blatantly obvious, such as when people actually use the word "perfect" to describe themselves, and more often in nonverbal ways.
The quote takes on specific meanings when "person" is replaced with "artist," "writer," or other descriptors.
Most cartoonists I know are constantly striving to become better at their art, and we often see only the flaws in our own work. The community is generally welcoming and supportive; more humble than arrogant.
I'm lucky to be part of this profession, and coming across the Tolstoy quote reminded me why I enjoy being around fellow cartoonists.
I expect this applies to any endeavor, and that those who are convinced that they're flawless stand out, but not in the way they believe.
Speaking of cartoonists, today's pipe pic was drawn by my cartoon hero Virgil Partch. I found the image on an auction site and resisted the urge to bid on it.
The image is a clip from this gag:
The caption reads, "He was my commanding officer during the war."
If you spot any boo-boos in the week's cartoons, rest assured that I probably noticed them after the files were uploaded and have been fretting ever since.
When Monday's comic was published, regular Bizarro reader Matthew H commented, "She's rollin' in dough." Naturally, I had to steal that for today's blog title, and I tip my hat to Matthew, who always has something amusing to say.
Last Wednesday, we foreshadowed this week's four-day run of "What's Your Jam?" multi-panel gags riffing on various characters and what type of music they might enjoy. The format provided an opportunity to create title panels, which Dan uses every Sunday, and I had fun with it.
The tortilla chip that likes salsa music might be my favorite in this group.
I wrote one more after this week was already queued for publication, so it will appear in late March. I've probably exhausted the premise, but let's never say never.
You have to admire the commitment to old-world craftsmanship.
Thanks for dropping by to peruse these illustrated drolleries.
Bonus Track
Duke Ellington: "C Jam Blues"
Soundies film, 1942
"Soundies" were precursors to modern music videos. Over 1,800 of these short musical films were produced in the 1940s, and they could be viewed on video jukeboxes called Panorams.
Additional Bizarro Resources
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore the following links.
