Exaggerated Immune Response

Today's Bizarro is the latest in an ever-growing pile of collaborative works I've done with Dan Piraro.

This one, much like another recent gag, started as a half-conscious doodle that struck me as a funny image. I couldn't think of any dialog for it, so after scanning the sketch, I dropped in a line of text below it as a placeholder, toying with the idea of running it as a caption contest.

A few days later, I came up with a line where the female character is breaking up with her leguminous boyfriend: It's not you, it's my allergies.

Dan and I both liked it, but he did some additional research that goaded me to take it a step further:

Just for kicks, I looked up peanut allergies in Wikipedia and saw that they give epinephrine to people with extreme allergies who go into anaphylactic shock. Maybe there is a way to take the gag one step further, mentioning the drug? Sometimes leaving something simple is better, but I'm always looking for ways to alienate half my readership.

That reference provided the extra punch that the final comic needed.

As a trivial tidbit, I'll mention that I colored Dan's art for this piece. As described in my prevous post, I've started doing the digital color on the daily Bizarros, so if anything looks wrong Monday through Saturday, it's not his fault.


Sheriff Dan and I have some other ventures planned, including a joint art show in early 2012. You'll hear about it here first. Or maybe here. Possibly here.


Also, it looks like I'll be writing material for another very funny cartoonist. We're still talking things over, and I'll blab about it as soon as it's a definite "go."

Since you're probably killing time at the office, you might enjoy browsing my little online store.


As always, you can check out the history of the Piraro-Wayno partnership by clicking on the Bizarro label.