Hold the Tea

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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Don't reach out all the way to the reader—don't worry about being "obscure" or "ambiguous or "weird”—if you're sure of what you're doing, ask the reader to do a little work and meet you halfway.

Bill Griffith: Griffy's Top 40 on Comics and Their Creation

Bill Griffith is one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. His character Zippy the Pinhead has delighted and baffled readers for more than fifty years, and has been the funniest and unlikeliest syndicated comic strip since 1986.

Along with many of my colleagues, I often consult Bill's top forty rules on comics and their creation. Number 32, quoted above, is one I do my best to honor since Bizarro's readers are generally quite literate and don't need to be talked down to.

Rule Number 40 is another favorite:

Last but not least: never listen to anyone else's advice on cartooning. 

Bill is one of five finalists for the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award as 2022's Cartoonist of the Year, and his work is certainly deserving. I'll be attending the Reuben Award Weekend in September, and look forward to congratulating him on his nomination. 

One of my proudest moments at the Reubens was a few years ago when I greeted Bill and he said it was good to see a fellow weirdo.

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Today's pipe pic was captured from a TV screen by longtime FoB Steve D.

It's a frame from a 1950 Three Stooges short, Love at First Bite.

Thanks to Steve for the shot. 

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Following are this week’s Bizarro gags. Let's review to see if we violated any of Griffy's rules.

Initially, I had some difficulty laying out Monday's panel. I couldn't find a way to show the "tails" of the word balloons without crowding the frame and placing some of them behind others. I finally decided to drop them, which worked out fine in this comic, since the bots are all speaking at once, and the kid isn't paying attention.

In the strip configuration, I overlapped some balloons and deleted the edges where they intersected, following Griffy's Rule Number 12 (There should always be a decent amount of "air" surrounding the lettering in speech or thought balloons.)

This gag wasn't meant to say anything about Charles Schulz other than the fact that his name is almost always misspelled. We've all seen comments like, "I love Charles Schultz! I'm his biggest fan!"

I deliberately drew the character to look nothing like Schulz.

Most of the responses I received were from people who got the point, but I also saw this reaction online:

Charles Schulz did not need to deal with the Devil to get where he got.

That came as a surprise, although I suppose it shouldn't have.

The original art for this gag, along with a print of the color panel, will soon be on its way to the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. The Museum already has several other Bizarro originals, by both Dan and myself.

The Museum's Collections Manager wrote to me about the gag, saying, "Our Curator is now thinking we have to do an exhibit titled There is No 'T' in Schulz! It is something the museum deals with daily!"

I wish I'd done this myself.

Here, we address another burning tech question. Most respondents agreed that the "thumbs up" emoji can effectively end a long text conversation on a cordial note. 

It's heartening to see interspecies cooperation as animals adapt to the ever-expanding human population.

Some would be grateful if that's the worst that houseguests did.

This one also required a little creativity with the word balloon in the strip layout. I usually try not to show a character between others doing the speaking, but blew it on this one. Fortunately, it worked out all right, with the tail clearly indicating who's talking.

Thank you for checking in with us. Your comments are always welcome. See you again next week.

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Bonus Track

Tony Bennett with Bob & Doug McKenzie
SCTV Season 1, Episode 19
"The Great White North Palace"
Originally aired on April 16, 1982

Tony Bennett died a few days ago at age 96. We were fortunate enough to hear him perform live a couple of times, and I wanted to remember him in this week's blog.

One of my favorite moments on SCTV was this coda to the 1982 episode "The Great White North Palace." Bennett's conversation with Bob & Doug McKenzie (after their big-budget TV special flopped), and his stripped-down version of "The Best is Yet to Come" is funny, sad, sweet, and uplifting. 

 

I was happy to find the clip online, despite its poor quality.

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More Bizarro Stuff Around the Webs

 Wayno's Weekly Bizarro Newsletter

 Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

 

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