Art Supply Angst

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 PANIC.

Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew

Bob Dylan (Tangled Up in Blue)

Your cartoonist's anxiety was slightly elevated recently when I  tried to reorder a supply of my favorite Japanese brush pen and learned that it had been discontinued. They're easy to work with, with a point that's flexible enough for varying line widths, the ink is nice and dark, and they're inexpensive, which is a plus because I use a lot of them. After about a week, the point becomes smooshed and I open up a fresh one. I do keep the older ones for filling in solid black areas.

Fortunately, the manufacturer has another product that seems to use the same ink and has an identical point, with a different barrel. I inked a couple of gags with the new one, and there were no accidents or injuries. The cost is similar to the old standby, so all is well once again.

The quotes from Adams and Dylan come to mind as I recall this brief non-crisis. Every one of them words rang true, indeed.

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Today's pipe pic is another self-portrait by a cartoonist.

Justin Green (1945-2022) introduces the 1972 minicomic "Jud" Green's Underground Cartooning Course.

I was aware of this mini, but don't own a copy. The entire book was recently posted on the Desert Island Comics Instagram page, which is where I snagged this image.

Green was an underground comix pioneer. His groundbreaking Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary virtually created the genre of autobiographical comix, and influenced countless cartoonists, including Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Bill Griffith.

Green and his wife Carol Tyler, a masterful cartoonist in her own right, are the subjects of the recent documentary, Married to Comics. It's a powerfully honest film, which I highly recommend.

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Now that I've calmed down, let's see the most recent Bizarro gags, which were inked with a trusty Kuretake PK-10S brush pen.

While we realize that lemmings don't actually jump off cliffs en masse, the myth is a useful metaphor for human behavior, including that of a significant minority of the American voting public.

As a person of Italian heritage, I endorse this treatment.

The arboreal equivalent of wearing short pants all year round.

If household pests were that neat in reality, people might not be so quick to hire exterminators.

I felt slightly guilty about cropping out the customer's head, but I was happy with the way I drew the pest control guy's shoes.

My inner coffee snob turns up its nose at espresso in paper cups, but I'll drink one in a cafe without protest. However, I draw the line at taking it to go.

Pulling strings is itself a job requirement.

And that closes out another week of two-dimensional jocularity. Thanks for checking it out.

See you next Saturday with more of this stuff. Remember not to panic, and to keep on keepin' on.

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Bonus Track

Bob Dylan: "On the Road Again"

From Bringing It All Back Home

Columbia Records LP, 1965

Not the Willie Nelson song, "On the Road Again" contains some of Dylan's most hilariously surreal lyrics.

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