A Headful of Ideas

Last week, we closed out my first full year as the daily Bizarro cartoonist, and stumbled right into Year Two. The staff and management at Bizarro Studios North are still recovering from the wild celebration, and we're currently testing multiple hangover remedies.
 

Our New Year's Eve offering shows the outgoing mascot offering words of wisdom to the new guy. I once had a summer job painting houses, and never forgot the advice I received from an experienced fellow everyone called "Uncle Jimmy," which seems more than a little creepy in retrospect. As we lingered over Styrofoam cups of lousy diner coffee, Uncle Jimmy leaned my way and said, "Never let anybody put a tool in your hand, kid." I heard his voice when I drew this cartoon.

This guy's motto is "Hey, not everybody can be first."

This simple gag required a fair amount of photo research, not only for mid-1960s photos of Dylan, but also for electric toothbrushes of the era. During that period, the future Nobel Laureate often wore pajama tops and a terrycloth robe in public.

You knew we couldn't get through the first week of the year without a pirate gag, right?

There's no explaining the workings of a cartoonist's brain, but this indication of rank made perfect sense to me.

A recent visit to the optician inspired Saturday's gag. I'd love to see a welder's mask on the wall along with the Ray-Bans.

By the way, we felt we had no choice but to include the eyeball secret symbol here.

Come back next week for another peek behind the newsprint. Also, check out Bizarro CEO (Chief Eyeball Officer) Dan Piraro's blog for his commentary and the latest Bizarro Sunday page.

Bonus Tracks

The songs of Bob Dylan, the subject of Wednesday's cartoon, can be humorous, surreal, deep, and sometimes just plain weird. He's truly a singular performer (take that however you care to) and a prolific writer. One website that attempts to track recordings of Dylan's compositions lists over 105,000 known cover versions.

For this week's post, we're offering two bonus tracks, both covers of songs written by the Bard of Duluth.

First up is "Subterranean Homesick Blues," by the fictional band Ken Bishop's Nice Twelve (featuring Jools Holland and Chris Difford of Squeeze, and Police drummer Stewart Copeland). This delightful, upbeat version showcases Dylan's inventive, dense wordplay, in a tune that always reminds me of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business."



This week's B-side (maybe make that D-side) is an utterly horrible rendition, from an entire album of cringe-inducing Dylan songs interpreted by Sebastian Cabot, the character actor who was best known for portraying Mr. French on the saccharine sitcom Family Affair. The record was occasionally featured on WFMU's gone but not forgotten Incorrect Music Show.



Yes, I actually own a copy of this atrocity, and no, I've never played it all the way through.