Halloweekend

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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Warm Samhain greetings, my friends. Here in Hollywood Gardens, PA, we're enjoying crisp autumn weather, and looking forward to distributing treats to the neighborhood ghouls on Monday.

Working with Nature, we no longer carve jack-o'-lanterns, and leave that job to the local squirrels.  

This is certainly more disturbing than anything I could've come up with.

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Today's pipe pic is a spooky drawing by Gary Leib (1955-2021).

I scanned the image from a CD titled Duplex Halloween Planet.

Hello Recording Club, a CD of the month club run by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, released this disc in 1993.
 

Gary Lieb was a talented and prolific cartoonist, video director, ceramicist, animator, musician and educator. With Doug Allen, he created Idiotland, a wildly surreal comic book series, which I highly recommend. Fantagraphics published seven issues of from March 1993 to December 1994.

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Let's take a look at the fresh horrors we brought to the funny pages this week.

We kicked off with a spoof of the classic Oscar Wilde story. I was surprised by one reader's reaction to this straightforward gag:

That’s disgusting. You can’t even call this garbage as a cartoon.

I almost posted a response asking why it prompted such outrage, but decided I'd rather not know what they read into it.

He might have looked less conspicuous if he had been on his way to a toga party.

These villainous characters were inspired by early cinema, so I used a monochromatic palette. On film, the dialog would probably have appeared as a standalone title card, but that would be tricky in a printed cartoon panel.

For graphics nerds reading this, I'll mention that the line art and the text are the only parts to be printed in black ink. The gray tones are mixes of the other three process colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow).

The baron in this panel is loosely based on English actor Peter Cushing (1913-1994), who played Victor Frankenstein in six films made by Hammer Studios between 1957 and 1974.

My drawing is more of an impression than a caricature or portrait.

We indulge in imagined art history with this punny appearance by iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Her self-portraits were often set against leafy backdrops filled with wildlife, which worked well for placing a bunch of Bizarro's Secret Symbols.

The strip format called for a vertical layout.
 

Saturday's panel looks ahead a couple days to Halloween.

That's the latest from our Little Shop of Humor at Bizarro Studios North. For additional entertainment, please visit one or more of our related sites.

Dan Piraro's Bizarro Blog
Dan's latest Bizarro Sunday page, and enlightening musings from his hyperactive brain

Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter
News from the studio, a preview of an upcoming gag, and some old thing dug up from the archives

Peyote Cowboy

Diego (it's Dan) Piraro's award-winning surreal western graphic novel

See you next week. Thanks for ringing our virtual doorbell. We hope the treats were acceptable.

 

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Bonus Track

Morgus and the Ghouls: "Morgus the Magnificent"
Vin Records, 1959

Morgus was a late-night horror movie host who appeared on New Orleans television from the 1950s through the 1980s.

The fictional band Morgus and the Ghouls featured NOLA musicians Frankie Ford and Mac Rebennack (Doctor John).

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