Saturday, June 20, 2026

My Art Belongs to Dada

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 

Never let anybody put a tool in your hand, kid.
"Uncle Jimmy"

For a couple of summers in my youth, I worked for a neighbor's "decorating" business. Most of what we did was house painting, along with a bit of light demolition, and occasionally we were hired to empty out a house that a deceased owner had left full of stuff their family didn't want.

During one of our "tear-out" jobs, I was holding a kitchen cabinet in place while a coworker loosened the bolts attaching it to the wall. That was when "Uncle Jimmy," the older guy on the crew, offered advice about tools as he rolled a cigarette. I never knew his last name or whether his first name was really Jimmy. I got the impression that he had a shady background, but he was enjoyable to work with.

I thought of Jimmy on Monday, when my spouse and I spent the day doing outdoor work, ignoring his wisdom. We were replacing a border along the edges of our sidewalk. We built it years ago using the parts from a kit meant to make a foot-high raised garden bed. I spent most of the day on my knees, moving dirt and pounding spikes into the ground, and the rest of the time loading debris into a small dumpster.

I returned to the studio Tuesday morning with renewed gratitude for being able to make comics for a living using artists' tools, rather than hammers, shovels, and saws. 

The job with the neighbor's business wasn't all punishing labor. The boss treated us to breakfast every morning at a greasy-spoon diner owned by his aunt and uncle, and two guys in their late 20s on the crew shared their "herbal supplements" with their teenage coworker.

At one of the house cleanouts, I found a cool 1930s book about dirigibles, and a One-a-Day vitamin bottle that had been filled with mercury. I had that for a long time, and would spill it out on a sheet of paper to watch it roll around. I'm lucky to have avoided neurological or kidney damage.

When I told my cartoon partner, Dan Piraro, about my salvaged treasures, he said, "I remember playing with mercury from a broken thermometer when I was a kid. I was fascinated with rolling it all around and trying to pick it up. Jeez!" Surviving the use of a toxic element as a toy is yet another thing Dan and I have in common.

My day of landscaping and the memories of many horrible summer jobs reminded me to thank all of you Bizarro readers for enabling me to have a career that may sometimes give me eyestrain but never leaves me with aching muscles or mercury poisoning.

Today's pipe pic is a 1958 shot of Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, taken in New York.

Photograph by Richard Avedon
© The Richard Avedon Foundation

A tip of the hat to Monsieur Duchamp for so much artistic inspiration.

No harmful chemicals were used in the creation of the latest Bizarro cartoons.

You can trust the symbol on the sack.

I've done quite a few gags about awards ceremonies, which are easy to make fun of until you're nominated for something.
I had fun drawing and coloring the Apex Predator award, although it was probably too small to read in newspapers.

Interestingly, some celebrities whose names are listed as authors never actually wrote a book.

"You've got the part as soon as you're cleared by Spell Check."

Friday's offering was another of my inanimate-objects-as-characters gags.

I chose 2,645 for the number of bricks because this panel was the 2,645th one I've drawn since I started the daily comics in 2018, and I did some math to arrive at what I hope is a believable weight.

I'll share another half-dozen Laff-O-Grams next Saturday, and I do hope you'll drop by to check them out.

For more insight into a cartoonist's brain, you might enjoy my free Substack newsletter.

Bonus Track

Graham Parker: "Mercury Poisoning"
Arista Records Single, 1979



 

No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, June 13, 2026

Lowe Frequencies

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 


Howdy, Bizarro Buckaroos. I'm back at Cartoon Corral after a week away from the drawing board and computer, so we're keeping things brief today. I'm fixin' to catch up on office biz and make more comics.

This week's pipe-smoking personality is the late King Hussein of Jordan, in a video screen grab from Albuquerque field correspondent Gerry J.

Gerry wrote: 
The King of Jordan was an avid ham radio operator like me. Unlike me, he was also an avid pipe smoker! Here is a screenshot from a documentary that shows him chatting on the radio with a ham in the UK.
Oddly, just before I received Gerry's email, we watched a documentary series called Wasp Woman: Murder of a B-Movie Queen, about actress Susan Cabot. It was fascinating and sad. Cabot had an ongoing romantic relationship with King Hussein (who had nothing to do with her death!).

Thanks to Gerry for the cool photo.

If you'd like to watch the short film about King Hussein the Ham, it's on YouTube (of course).

Here are the comics published while I was slacking off. The cartoon show must go on!

As my mind wandered a few months back, I speculated about what might happen if a mirror were placed face down on a scanner, and imagined this scenario. Hey, it might even prevent crashes.

I wish I had drawn the mime with a teardrop painted on his cheek.

It's "command-Z" if you're partaking of the Forbidden Operating System.

For this caption, I offer my sincere apologies.

Your cartoonist loves gags involving music and using inanimate objects as characters, so this one made me a happy ink monkey.

The food-gathering strategy of this species is the least efficient in the insect world.

Thanks for checking in. We'll have more of this stuff to share next Saturday.

If you crave more in-depth geekery and behind-the-scenes trivia, please consider subscribing to my free Substack newsletter.

Bonus Track

Nick Lowe: "Shake That Rat"
from Bowi
Stiff Records 7-inch EP (1977)


"Shake That Rat" is a surf-style instrumental with the bass guitar taking the lead. It was originally released on Bowi, Nick's smart-alec answer to David Bowie's Low album.

Nearly fifty years later, Lowe is still recording and performing, and his songwriting is better than ever. These days, he performs solo, or backed by Los Straitjackets, and he's worth seeing in any context.


10 comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, June 06, 2026

Where To Begin?

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 creative process doesn't begin with humor.
It begins with subject matter.
Dave Coverly

Dave Coverly is the brilliant cartoonist behind Speed Bump, a single-panel daily comic he launched in 1994. He's also an admired colleague and friend.

I was delighted to find this quote in the excellent book Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons by Phil Witte & Rex Hesner.

Dave describes a cartoonist's process more eloquently than I can, though I've tried. When I began seriously working on being a single-panel cartoonist, I was trying to write funny punchlines or captions, which worked all right for a while. One day, something switched in my brain, and I started thinking of topics I wanted to write about and working to find the humor in them.

Another important skill for a cartoonist is being economical with words. Briefer is usually better, as evidenced by Mr. Coverly's concise description.

Our pipe pic this time around is a meerschaum masterpiece carved by Sadik Yanik, a renowned Turkish pipe maker. 

The bowl end of the pipe is a Star Wars character named Maz Kanata, which, I admit, I had to look up.

Bizarro reader Stuart VR spotted the item in a Craigslist ad.

If you're interested, the same listing is now active on eBay, at the price of only $1,895.

A round of applause to Stuart for contributing to my overstuffed pipe pic folder.

Let's review this week's Bizarro panels for unnecessary verbiage.

Not only were the ribs bruised, but the artichoke hearts were broken.

My favorite detail is easy to miss. I was trying to do a comedic riff on the Morton Salt girl. After coming up with the name "Martian Salt," I drew an alien version of the famous logo, but it was much too small. I finally realized I could put the Flying Saucer secret symbol on the box.

Many Benedictine monks still produce beers, wines, and baked goods. I conceived the gag as a reference to the trade name Benedictine liqueur, which I recently learned was developed by a 19th-century wine merchant who made up a story that it was originally made by French monks. The story was a fabrication, but it made for great marketing.

There was, however, a real monk named Dom Pérignon who helped improve Champagne-making methods, and that historical fact may have made the Benedictine story easier to believe.

None of that background is necessary to get the joke, but I found it interesting.

The student hopes to eventually earn a black lumbar support belt.

Here's some etymological context, from Blatt Billiards of Wood-Ridge, New Jersey:
The term “foosball” comes from the German word “Fußball,” which translates to “football” (or “soccer” in American English). The game mimics soccer, with players controlling miniature figures on rods to kick a ball into the opponent's goal.

The phonetic pronunciation of "Fußball" evolved into "foosball," making it easier for English speakers to adopt. Over time, this unique name became synonymous with the tabletop game, distinguishing it from traditional soccer. German immigrants in the U.S. popularized the term, giving us the name “foosball” as we know it today.
As an old Monty Python fan, I laughed at this one, even if nobody else does.

I've done a couple like this before, but this is the first time I've done one in Bizarro. I haven't figured out what to call this type of gag. 

Suggestions are welcome.

In a weird cosmic coincidence, this one was published on Merle Haggard's 78th birthday. Compounding the oddity, he died exactly a year later, on his 79th birthday.

Howard Stern is still with us, dispelling any cartoon curse theories.

Fifteen years ago, I coined the term "streptonym" to describe this type of wordplay, and I'm still waiting for it to catch on.

Thanks for checking out the blog. I'll crack open another six-pack of chuckleboxes next week to examine what's inside (or behind) them. You're welcome to join in.

If you crave more in-depth geekery and behind-the-scenes trivia, please consider subscribing to my free Substack newsletter.

Bonus Track

Sonny Rollins with orchestra conducted by Oliver Nelson: 
"Alfie's Theme"
from Original Music From The Score "Alfie."
Impulse! Records (1996)


Jazz giant Sonny Rollins, "the Saxophone Colossus," died on May 25 at age 95. The music from "Alfie" isn't his most challenging material, but it's hard to discount its appeal. 


17 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Saturday, May 30, 2026

Parlez-vous Musique ?

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 so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly TERRIBLE to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS.
Samuel Adams (Boston Gazette, 1768)

Samuel Adams knew what he was talking about. The poor chap would be appalled by today's consolidation of print media, broadcast, and electronic news and opinion outlets by insanely rich abettors of tyranny who are scheming to silence free speech in favor of regime-approved propaganda.

A recent reminder of this warning was Stephen Colbert's Late Show coming to an end under shady circumstances that I needn't detail here. Colbert is a sharp and influential political commentator and, by all accounts, a genuinely decent human being. In short, exactly the kind of person thin-skinned tyrants hate and fear more than anything.

As the American Experiment approaches the 250-year mark, I ask those with the means to support independent, public, and community TV and radio stations, print/online publications, and other news sources not controlled by oligarchs, tyrants, or their bootlicking enablers.

Here endeth the PSA. We return to our regular cartoon programming.


When I first saw today's pipe pic, I thought it might be American actor Art Carney, but it's actually Georges Brassens (1921-1981), a French poet and singer-songwriter.


International Bizarro fiend correspondent Vince C. of Vancouver, British Columbia, discovered the photo on the "Le temps d'une chanson" Facebook page, described as "a radio program dedicated to French-language songs from the 1930s to the 1970s, hosted by Catherine Pépin."

Brassens recorded from the early 1950s through the late 70s. He was apparently a lifelong smoker, having frequently been photographed with a pipe emerging from his bushy mustache. I've been enjoying listening to his early recordings, despite the language barrier.

Thanks to Vince for the photo and for turning me on to Georges Brassens. Anyone who likes cartoons and music is my kind of reader.

Cartoons are another (albeit humbler) form of free speech, and here are my latest blatherings.

They're plugged in but disconnected.

Tuesday's panel imagines a new approach to counseling, which could be termed "couples regression therapy."

It's as easy as tapping your credit card on the Collection Plate app.

"Why in the world would you feel insecure, FretBot?"

Oh, yeah, right. 

(Screen grab courtesy of our pal Eric S.)

Have I exhausted the topic with the fourth installment? Who knows?

Ol' Punchy was bursting with pride to receive his city's medal of humor.

You Gotta Look Sharp

Summer's almost here, and what better way to show your good taste than by sporting a BizarroWear tee? Here's Jazz Pickle David R. sporting his Irön Bunnies öf Dööm shirt while visiting Ho Chi Minh City with his partner, Laura F.

You can become an icon of befuddling fashion by grabbing one (or more?) of the large selection of T-shirts and other doo-dads available in the King Features Bizarro Shop. We'd love to share more photos of readers modeling the tees.

That's it for the last post of May. We'll be back with a fresh post the first week of next month, as soon as Google lets me know if next month is Dectober or Junuary.

Bonus Track

Ben Vaughn Quintet: "Pièce de Résistance"
from Pièce de Résistance
Many Moods Records (2016)


Ben talks about this song and performs a solo acoustic version on a recent episode of his excellent new podcast, Straight From The Hat.

Oh man, that began as a list. I started keeping a list of French phrases that we use in America a lot, and then at one point decided to set up the music, and it came out sounding a little something like this.

I recommend checking out the podcast, mes amis!


7 comments:
Labels: , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)