Twelve More Months of Chucklery

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

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Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future.

Norman Lear (1922-2023)

At year's end, it's common to reflect on what one has accomplished (or failed to) in the past twelve months. I'm taking a longer view by noting that today wraps up my sixth year of doing the daily Bizarro comics.

I began working with Dan Piraro in 2009, became a regular gag writer, and two-time guest cartoonist, and served as the feature's colorist between 2011 and 2014. 

Dan invited me to take over the dailies beginning on January 1, 2018, resulting in around 1,879 daily comics so far, and our partnership has been the best work and creative experience I've ever had.

We opened this post with a quote from Norman Lear, who died in early December at the age of 101. It's an optimistic sentiment and one I'll try to hold onto despite the abundance of negative forces bombarding us daily.

The last blog entry of the year also feels like an appropriate time to acknowledge and thank you all for your ongoing support. We don't know what horrors and hardships the New Year will bring, but we at Rancho Bizarro in Mexico and Bizarro Studios North in Hollywood Gardens PA will keep doing our thing to, we hope, provide a few moments of healing laughter now and then.

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Although not identified as such, let's pretend that today's pipe pic is the New Year's baby. If Google Translate can be trusted, he's casting a vote for a French brand of corn starch.

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While we ponder the mysteries of le bébé qui fume la pipe, let's look back at the last cartoons of 2023.

When totaling the Secret Symbols in this gag, I found myself counting the slice of pizza, so if any readers were thrown by it, you weren't alone.

We imagine that the term Boxing Day has a different meaning for recycling crews.

Naturally, the emergency call was placed by the butler.

The private lives of public figures are seldom what one would expect.

Of course, in this context, the character's appearance falls under the umbrella of fair use.

We ended the week with the heartwarming tale of the Littlest Troll.

And that concludes our output for 2023. Visit us next week to check out the first gags of the New Year.

Thank you, as always, for your kind attention.

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Bonus Track

Ahmad Jamal: "Poinciana"

From the album But Not for Me

Argo Records LP, 1958

Ahmad Jamal was born in Pittsburgh in 1930 and died in April of 2023. He played in a tasteful, minimalist style, and Miles Davis was quoted as saying he was impressed by Jamal's rhythmic sense and his "concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement."

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Additional Bizarro Outlets

If you like what we do, and appreciate that it comes to you free of charge, we encourage you to explore any or all of the following links. 

Thanks!

Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter (Temporarily Out of Order)

Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan's Tip Jar (One-time or recurring)

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

Official Bizarro Shop

King Features Subscription & Archive Access

Support Your Local Humorist

Copyright© 2023 by Wayno®  

  

Ho Ho No

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

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The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you're reading this post, I consider you to be a friend of Bizarro as well as a personal friend. With the end of 2023 in view, as I look ahead to the start of my seventh year of creating the daily Bizarro comics, I pause to consider how fortunate I am to do this work and to be part of a welcoming community of comics people. Each year, making a living in the world of print publications becomes a shakier prospect. Your readership and support help keep us going.

Thanks for all you do.

If you like, you can throw a little support our way by ordering the just-released 2024 Bizarro Cowboys & Clowns Wall Calendar from King Features. As you know, cowboys and clowns are among our favorite comic subjects, and Dan and I selected some of our best C&C gags for the calendar.

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Since we're into the holiday weekend, our pipe pic is a classic commercial art image of the American vision of Santa Claus. Looking at it closely, it's unclear how he keeps it floating just in front of his open mouth. Christmas magic, one supposes.

Speaking of Santa, last weekend my band was joined by our friend Rick Sebak for a performance of the famous poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas.

Rick has produced many entertaining "scrapbook documentaries" for WQED television in Pittsburgh and for PBS. He's a goodwill ambassador for the city and a genuinely nice human.

WQED filmed Rick with the Combo backing him, and you can view it on Facebook here.

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Now, let's review this week's cartoons, which include a couple of seasonal gags.

Also, Apple will build one of these in the front yard of every iTunes user.

The strip version, in a vertical orientation, does a better job of conveying the monument's ridiculous scale.

OSHA really should pay a visit to that North Pole toy shop.

In police jargon, this is referred to as a "5-7-5."

I apologize for making readers go back and count the syllables to fact-check the gag. If it's any consolation, I left myself barely enough space to fit the text and art into the strip for this one.

Our tax system is particularly complicated for the elf employed.

As usual, I placed my favorite comic of the week in the Friday slot. I enjoyed taking a detour from the usual single-panel format, and I like the gag's employment of the Rule of Three.

In addition, the strip conversion was nearly painless.

As I've mentioned in the past, I find that comics using inanimate objects as characters are much funnier if they can be done without adding human features to them. I'm not smart enough to know why that is, but I'll still defend the theory.

That's the latest from Bizarro Studios North. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope yours is all that you wish it will be.

Thanks as always for your kind attention.

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Bonus Tracks

The Kinks: "Father Christmas"

Arista Records single, 1977

The Kinks brought punk rock cynicism to the holiday music genre with this wonderful record.

The Red Beans & Rice Combo
"Christmas Island"
Live at the Original Pittsburgh Winery
December 16, 2023
Video courtesy of Sheri Edmondson

Finally, a holiday greeting to you from Tom, Dave, and me.

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Other Bizarro Sources

If you like what we do, and appreciate that it comes to you free of charge, we encourage you to explore any or all of the following links. 

Thanks!

 Wayno's Weekly Bizarro Newsletter

Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan's Tip Jar (One-time or recurring)

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

Official Bizarro Shop

King Features Subscription & Archive Access

Support Your Local Humorist

Copyright© 2023 by Wayno®  

 

Too Much Is Not Enough

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

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Happy Saturday, Friends of Bizarro. I'm currently spread too thin and a little overwhelmed, so this post will be a quickie. We had three household projects to deal with in the past few days. No, wait, make that four. Fortunately, none were too messy or intrusive, but they were still stressful. Especially the part where we write the checks.

This evening, my musical group is playing a holiday show at our favorite venue, The Original Pittsburgh Winery.

Without further ado, here's today's pipe pic.

This illustration was made by the American designer Paul Rand (1914-1996). A favorite graffiti tag around the studio is:

Paul Rand >> Rand Paul

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Now for the week in comics.

Monday's gag imagines the most sacred of vows for the current era.

I used colors to define the K2 Secret Symbol on the pastor's stole, which wasn't possible in the black-and-white version.

The color treatment worked well for online viewing, but in newsprint, it wasn't as effective.

This scan is clearer than the panel looks in actual print. The K2 and other gold-on-red details turned into a muddy mess of halftone dots. It's a challenge to create art that will be viewed in wildly different mediums and is something I'll try to keep in mind from now on.

I'm not sure if clowns would go to an amusement park for fun since their workday is nothing but forced jollity. Maybe they patronize depression parks.

The drawing and the gag itself were based on two dogs we know, a delightful pair of siblings who live with dear friends of ours. The dachshund triggers my watch's "loud environment" warning when he greets us.

When the machines take over, they'll probably want some downtime.

Friday's gag took longer to draw than any of the other five and left me craving a schmear of cream cheese.

Tread lightly if they get to the rest area before you.

That's the latest from Bizarro Studios North. Stop by next week for another batch of pictures in boxes. Maybe we'll have some photos from tonight's music gig.

Thanks as always for your kind attention.

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Bonus Track 

Ben Vaughn: "The Man Who Has Everything"

Enigma Records, 1990

I decided to share this song by my friend Ben Vaughn as a callback to the everything bagel gag, forgetting that the first line mentions buying Christmas gifts, so it turned out to be doubly appropriate for this time of year.

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Even More Bizarro "Content"

If you like what we do, and appreciate that it comes to you free of charge, we encourage you to explore any or all of the following links. 

Thanks!

 Wayno's Weekly Bizarro Newsletter

Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan's Tip Jar (One-time or recurring)

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

Official Bizarro Shop

King Features Subscription & Archive Access

Support Your Local Humorist

Copyright© 2023 by Wayno®  

 

Reply Hazy, Try Again

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

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Music improves the human condition.

Tim Wolfson

Today's quote is from a good friend of mine who loves music. It's a simple but profound sentiment that I think of often. I have nothing to add to it, except to thank him for all the music he shares with everyone he knows.

I'll follow Tim's lead and post some music I made with friends at the end of this entry.

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Our rather blurry pipe pic is a YouTube screen grab from Rare Exports: Safety Instructions, a 2005 short that was the basis for the 2010 feature Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Pictured are actors Onni and Jorma Tormilla, who are son and father in real life. I've touted this Finnish Christmas film in the past and just watched it again this week.

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Like music, laughter is also good for your well-being. Let's see if this week's Bizarro comics offer any beneficial effects.

I'll leave it up to the individual reader to decide if the dummy is sentient, or if the ventriloquist has learned to throw his thoughts.

Several folks who enjoy finding the Secret Symbols in Bizarro argued that the auction paddle labeled "3.14" should have counted toward the total in this panel, making it six instead of five.

I've consulted with Bizarro's Council of Elders who ruled that a word describing a Secret Symbol is not the same as an actual Symbol, and, although not a word per se, the number representing pi doesn't count as pie. That's just irrational.

With or without the helmet, Junior can do impressive headstands.

I wish I hadn't seen Thursday's comic as printed in the local paper. As I described in last week's post, they squeeze the image horizontally, which is painfully obvious when the main part of the drawing is two circular objects.

Sometimes a whistle just doesn't cut it.

The strip version of this gag works rather well and both layouts were designed for the path a reader's eye takes. When we read a vertical panel, our eye travels in a "Z" shaped course, and when reading a strip, it's more of a straight upper left to lower right trajectory. In both cases, the last two elements we process are the image of the dog and the caption.

I was pleased with Saturday's gag because, in a rare instance of advance planning, my original drawing worked in both the strip and panel layouts with almost no shuffling.

The strip version:

And the original art:

I only had to add a few small digital drawings When creating the print files. Can you spot them?

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Art Unknowingly Imitates Life

We received a photo of a handsome musician from Bizarro reader Amy E, of Indianapolis. 

Amy works at a music store specializing in string instruments. When Paul, their banjo instructor saw our comic of October 2, he said, "I've got a hat just like that!"

Thanks to Paul for being a good sport. I explained to Amy that although I've joked about banjos being annoying, I don't feel that way myself, and in fact empathize since I play ukulele.

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Out and About

I'm almost always at home working on comics, but since our last post, I spent some time in the outside world, and enjoyed it!

Last Saturday my spouse and I went to see the film Married to Comics, a documentary about the cartoonist couple Carol Tyler and her late husband Justin Green. Carol (shown above with your own ink monkey) was here for the screening and was interviewed onstage afterward. Director John Kinhart is peeking above Carol's left shoulder.

I never had the chance to meet Justin, but have known Carol since the late 1980s. Justin's underground comic, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary totally rewired my teenage brain.

The film is being shopped to festivals and distributors, and if you have the opportunity to see it, do NOT miss it. Also, I highly recommend all of  Carol's comics. Her work keeps getting better and better.

On Sunday afternoon, The Red Beans & Rice Combo performed at an event sponsored by the nonprofit organization Autism Pittsburgh. We had an energetic and engaged audience, which made the show great fun for us.

That wraps up another report from your cartoonist. We'll be back next week with more words and pictures for you.

This week, why not turn a friend on to some music you love? It'll make you both feel good.

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Bonus Track 

The Red Beans & Rice Combo: "Tico-Tico"

Bonedog Records, 2023

You probably guessed this was coming. It's one of twelve selections from our new album, Breaking Up the House. Performing with my partners Tom Roberts (piano, vocals, whistling, kazoo) and Dave Klug (drums, percussion, vocals) has pushed me to work at being an instrumentalist as well as a vocalist. Singing comes easier to me, so I'm rather proud of being able to (almost) keep up with them on this purely instrumental number.

The album is now available on all of the usual streaming and download platforms. I hope you like it.

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More Bizarro Stuff

If you like what we do, and appreciate that it comes to you free of charge, we encourage you to explore any or all of the following links. 

Thanks!

 Wayno's Weekly Bizarro Newsletter

 Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan's Tip Jar (One-time or recurring)

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

Official Bizarro Shop

King Features Subscription & Archive Access

Support Your Local Humorist

Copyright© 2023 by Wayno®