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
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
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