Book Smarts

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, who created Bizarro in the late twentieth century, continues to do the Sunday comic from Rancho Bizarro in Mexico.

Wayno

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I don't care what you've heard, this is a crazy mixed up world.
Willie Dixon, "Crazy Mixed Up World"

Hello again, Jazz Pickles. I'm looking forward to a relatively relaxing Saturday after some unexpected manual labor last week. We spent some time working in the hot sun, reinforcing the fence around our vegetable garden, which had been set upon by hungry varmints. 

The experience made me grateful that I don't have to depend on my own agricultural skills to survive, although I did learn how to build a chicken wire fence, or as the packaging called it, "poultry netting."

Today's pipe pic is appropriate to the summer season.

 

In this century, toys that that produce soap bubbles are rarely modeled on tobacco pipes. The few available today are primarily marketed as costume props for adults.

The quote at the top of this entry comes from a song written by Willie Dixon, and recorded by Little Walter Jacobs. Dixon (1915-1992) was a blues musician, songwriter, vocalist, arranger, and record producer. He wrote over 500 songs, including blues standards such as "Spoonful," "The Seventh Son," "Wang Dang Doodle," and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover."

After completing my gardening chores, I switched gears and met my bandmates in the nearby town of Carnegie, PA, where we played our arrangement of "Crazy Mixed Up World," and other favorite tunes.

L-R: Wayno, Dave Klug, Tom Roberts
Photo by Sheri Edmondson

Making music with my good friends was a fine reward for a little farmhand work earlier in the day.

On Monday, it was back to the funny pages for your cartoonist. Let's see what we put out there on newsprint this past week.

I never read The Velveteen Rabbit as a child, but I was at least familiar with the title. When I thought of the caption for this panel, I read the book to see if there was a gag to be found. Like many children's books, it's sentimental and more than a little terrifying. I'm glad I read it as an adult; it might have traumatized my younger self.

A violin doesn't fit the mood at every table. Sometimes, another instrument is called for.

I had fun drawing the books inside the little free library. Popular Surrealism is one I'd grab if it existed. I also tweaked Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and used Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as a spot for Bizarro's O2 secret symbol.

The other visible titles refer to actual books. In fact, two are excellent graphic novels by friends of mine.

This is Vince Dorse's Untold Tales of Bigfoot, a terrific all-ages adventure story about the friendship that develops between Bigfoot and a lost dog. You can order a copy here. Vince was surprised by the inclusion, and he blogged about it on Thursday.

Mary Fleener is a longtime pal, and a great cartoonist and musician. I wrote a blurb for her graphic novel Billie the Bee, which the publisher decided not to use, but I'm happy to share it with you:

Mary Fleener has been developing her cartoon chops more than thirty years, and this modern yet timeless book-length fable demonstrates beautifully how serious woodshedding can pay off. Billie the Bee is a mature, accomplished work by one of the best cartoonists of the post-underground generation.

You can order Billie from Fantagraphics or other book retailers. 

The remaining titles are books that I have here in my home office:

VIP Quips is a 1975 rebus book by my main man, Virgil Partch, also known as "VIP." It's not his best work, but it has its own charm.

Down Beat Magazine published annual collections of their jazz record reviews in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

The hardcover volumes are beautifully designed.

Hey Look! was a series of filler pages created by Harvey Kurtzman in the late 1940s for Timely Comics (which later became Marvel). Kitchen Sink Press collected many of them in a nifty hardcover volume.

The sign near the construction site reads "Cherubs Working Ahead."

His story is visible for all to see, but she has to be taken at face value.

I normally post only color comics, but I found the black & white strip layout of this one to be quite pleasing. The distance between the cards and the blank space surrounding them made for a clean, uncluttered design.
 

The development of human spoken language was soon followed by the invention of hyperbole.

Thanks for checking out my work for the week. Be sure to visit Dan Piraro's blog, where he'll have more to say about these gags, and will reveal his latest Sunday Bizarro page, which is always a superb example of comic art.

If you crave even more words about cartoons, you can subscribe to my newsletter. Each one includes a peek at an upcoming Bizarro cartoon, and an image from my vast archives of forgotten art and design.

Bonus Track

John Coltrane, "Blue Train"
from the album Blue Train
Blue Note Records, 1957

 

This classic John Coltrane recording opens with a beautiful trombone intro by Curtis Fuller. About halfway through the tune, Fuller takes a masterful, understated solo.

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