Organic Activism

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 gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.

Plato

Several hours after posting last Saturday's blog entry, we went out to hear live music at our favorite Pittsburgh venue, which had been closed for seven years for upgrades and renovations. Water Seed, an energetic seven-piece band from New Orleans, played a blistering two-hour set of their Future Funk, which had everyone in the house up and grooving, including a certain aging punk/jazzbo cartoonist who should never dance in public.

If you have an opportunity to hear Water Seed, do not miss them. Their current single, "Face in the Crowd (Are You Ready?)" is closing in on a million views on YouTube.

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Today's pipe pic is a creepy portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, and the subject of a hugely successful movie currently playing.

We're running this photo because we've been unable to find a picture of Barbie smoking a pipe.

Thanks to longtime FoB Andréa D for sharing the image. 

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Now, let's take a peek at the latest Bizarro gags.

Woodchucks are known for their politeness when making a request.

Is it cheating if a cartoonist thinks of an egregious pun, but undercuts it with a winking caption?

I've been told that McDonald's retired the Ronald character in 2016, but in fact, he still appears at live events and on social media, rather than in advertising.

The dialog in this gag even made me a little squeamish.

I suppose I could have used Mayor McCheese instead, but his head would've occupied most of the available space in the panel.

Admittedly, I know very little about sports, but I'm happy to use them as a metaphor for corporate America.

Friday's gag may be silly on the surface, but it does have a point of view. Last year we planted carrot seeds in our backyard garden, and I learned what baby carrots actually look like. More accurately, the image on the far right is a seedling. Actual baby carrots look like small, squat "adult" carrots. The products often marketed as baby carrots are full-size carrots that have been cut into two-inch lengths and abraded to smooth their ends and polish their surfaces. I imagine the process involves a giant rock tumbler machine.

This food marketing practice mirrors the effects of human beauty standards as evidenced by the rock tumbler effect of Instagram photo filters.

I'm pretty sure I heard that talk therapy was practiced in eighteenth-century France.

Thank you for dropping by the old bloggery station. Your comments are always welcome. See you again next week.

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Bonus Track

King Floyd, "Groove Me"
Malaco Records single, 1970

Since we're still in heatwave mode, I'm sharing another song that feels like summer to me, by New Orleans soul singer King Floyd. And, yes, that was his actual name.

"Groove Me" made the national top ten, and I remember hearing it often as a kid. When I listen to it today, I'm knocked out by the bass playing of Vernie Robbins through the entire tune.

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Other Bizarro Resources

 Wayno's Weekly Bizarro Newsletter

 Dan Piraro's Weekly Bizarro Blog

Dan "Diego" Piraro's Peyote Cowboy Graphic Novel

 

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