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
As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of
producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed.
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Darwin was right about many things but missed the mark regarding music. For your cartoonist, music is crucial to the daily habits of life, and existence would be dismal without its presence. It affects our mood and contributes to our well-being, and I feel sad for those people who are unable to engage with music.
I can't imagine a world without music any more than one without art, food, wine, coffee, friends, or cartoons.
Perhaps Charlie realized that music offers benefits to humans, but his singular focus on "use" prevented him from understanding them.
He at least recognized that, within his frame of reference, producing and enjoying music were "mysterious" facilities.
As always, I welcome your recommendations for music I may not have heard before.
One of our blog commenters sent a link to a fascinating Paris Review article from 2017 about the Jean-Paul Sartre Prize for Prize Refusal, inspired by J-P's brush-off of the Nobel Prize in 1964. The story, written by author Ursula K. LeGuin, included this excellent photo of Sartre looking particularly contrary.
I have a pipe pic of LeGuin herself in my files. She'll turn up here soon.
Also, if by some miracle I win the National Cartoonists Society award for which I'm nominated, I will not follow Sartre's lead.
Today we have a first for the blog: an almost pipe pic.
Photo by John Sewell
Bizarro reader Kathleen C sends us this pipe-like creature that appeared in an antiques column in Toronto's Waterloo Region Record newspaper.
Appraiser John Sewell described it as
[A] rare coal-oil dip cigar lighter used to share at home or office. The front wick provided a constant flame while the hat, with an attached soaking swab, could be lit on the flame and then used to light one’s cigar. This lighter dates to about 1890...
I sincerely thank Kathleen and the anonymous blog reader for these images, which came with such interesting backstories.
Now to review the latest gags, with eyes peeled for pipes and our other Secret Symbols.
When drawing this panel in March, I learned how to spell "minuscule."
The vertical strip layout accentuates the contrast between the caddie and the golfer. In a normal horizontal strip, I would have had to drastically reduce the entire drawing or leave half of the caddie out of frame.
I also decided not to scale the golf ball to the clubs. Considering how small comics appear in some papers, the ball would have disappeared.
Feast your eyes upon that rarest of creatures: an honest car dealer.
The health risks of exploding cigars are both immediate and long-term. A safer choice would be a bubble pipe (which counts as a Secret Symbol).
All I can say about this gag is a paraphrase of Dan Piraro's first editor:
This is an example of why the feature is called Bizarro and not Normalo.
Three Rocks is nominated for a 2024 Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for Best Reality-Based Work, and we're pulling for him to win it.
If I may indulge in some self-promotion, my original drawing for the above Bizarro panel will be among the works exhibited in The Nancy Show. I'm thrilled to have a piece of art displayed along with many of my esteemed cartoonist colleagues.
Motor pool assignments were already spoken for.
That's it for another week of words & pictures from Bizarro Studios North, but we'll be back on June 1 with another bucketful of buffoonery.
Bonus Tracks
Tony Burrello: "There's a New Sound" Horrible Records, 1953
This lease-breaker novelty was written by Tony Burrello (née Tamburello) and Tom Murray when their serious musical compositions proved to be unsuccessful.
When my niece and nephew were kids, I'd often compile cassette tapes of unusual music or children's records for them. The first time my nephew heard "There's a New Sound" (also known as "The Sound of Worms"), he raced through the house, accelerating along with the music for the full three minutes.
Take that, Darwin.
NRBQ: "God Bless Us All" from God Bless Us All (Live at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel)
Rounder Records, 1987
One of my all-time favorite bands recorded this Burrello & Murray composition for their live album of the same title.
A Bucketful of Bizarro
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.
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
Things are hopping at Bizarro Studios North. I rarely take on any projects outside of the comic, but I couldn't pass up two cool gigs that came my way.
You'll be among the first to know once I'm allowed to talk about them.
Bizarro reader Gregory S took today's pipe pic at a market stall in Ballarat Australia a few weeks ago.
There's so much to like here: the price tag, the cutaway drawing showing the pipe's inner workings (complete with technical notes), the distressed box, and especially the Nimrod brand name.
A tip of the ol' Bizarro cocoanut straw porkpie to Gregory for getting a photo of this pipe spotted in the wild.
With additional deadlines facing your cartoonist, let's get straight to the latest gags.
The dejected galoot appears with the approval of King Features Syndicate.
Remember the good old days when arms deals involved actual arms?
The cat is better at manipulating humans, and easily won the debate.
I took a risk with this panel. Four years ago I did a dung beetle gag, and got an angry email from one reader:
Comics are supposed to be cute, funny, entertaining, not gross and disgusting as yours are. Why you are allowed on the comics page or even in the paper at all is a total mystery to me. I've kept my silence for a long, long, time but today's "comic" strip was the last straw. It and you are disgusting and revolting and should be banned from the papers. It's obvious that your strip mirrors your dark, sick mind. I think it's time to get a petition started to take you out and bring back entertaining comics.
It was the first time I had received such a vitriolic response to a cartoon. I composed a polite rebuttal, and never sent it, but writing it made me feel better.
Part of me hopes that the same reader saw this panel.
The scroll also said, "I will have limited access to scribes and couriers."
I quite enjoyed drawing this gag, as I imagined this buckaroo executing an ultra-slow-motion wheelie.
That wraps up the week in cartoonery from your humble ink monkey.
Visit us again next Saturday for more of this sort of foolishness.
Bonus Track
The Pixies: "Nimrod's Son" From the mini album, Come On Pilgrim 4AD Records, 1987
Saxophonist David Sanborn died last Saturday at age 78. Between 1988 and 1990 Sanborn hosted a TV program, called at different times Sunday Night, Michelob Presents Night Music, and simply Night Music. Each episode featured performances by a wide range of musicians and bands who appeared in various combinations on every episode.
I spent way too much time viewing Night Music clips and episodes on YouTube this week, one of which was the Pixies' first appearance on American television. Watching it reminded me how much I enjoyed their first two albums, Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa.
The photo of the "Nimrod Drysmoker Pipe" felt like a sign telling me what today's bonus track should be.
More Bizarro for Your Hungry Eyes
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.
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
Detail and texture have a reason for existing beyond just my taste; they flatter wear and erosion. A flat block of concrete looks worse every day it exists. A carved form looks better because the patterns of erosion it undergoes outline the carving.
Brian Eno
I recently began reading A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary (1995), and finding it even more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. Eno is one of the smartest and most interesting people in the arts. He's an original thinker adept at writing about his art in an entertaining voice.
The quote above comes from one of the book's many appendices. In a letter to a friend, Eno expresses his disdain for modern buildings with solid glass exteriors. The erosion analogy resonated with me because I felt a similar antipathy toward digital art around that same time.
By the mid-1990s, I knew I'd have to start using Photoshop for my illustration and comics work, if not to draw and color the art, at least to deliver it electronically. I resisted because I hated the slick digital images I saw everywhere. That first wave of digitally created art was too sterile and "perfect" for my taste—it reminded me of certain over-rendered airbrush illustrations of the 1970s and 80s.
Eventually, I realized that an artist can use Photoshop as a tool without being controlled by it. I could draw traditionally and after scanning the art, I could resize, rearrange, clean up, and color it without eliminating evidence of the human hand.
I love seeing the natural imperfections (Eno's "detail and texture") in an enlarged scan of a drawing.
I employ a tiny fraction of Photoshop's capabilities in my comics and artwork. If the program is a giant warehouse of tools, I'm getting by with a screwdriver, a ruler, and a utility knife, and I'm usually (relatively) happy with the results. Either way, I know it's my own and not the result of soulless bots scraping and stealing the work of others.
A few weeks back, my middle brother sent me a Fred MacMurray pipe pic, and this week, the youngest of us three sent me a photo he took at an art museum.
He even included this handy information.
Today, I tip my hat to baby brother for spotting this cubist work and sending it my way.
We now present the most recent Bizarro comics, with all imperfections intact.
We kicked off the week with my latest salute to surrealist René Magritte, who inspired the Pipe of Ambiguity.
Tuesday's gag has that "ewe factor."
This was not intentionally timed to coincide with any real-life high-profile criminal proceedings, although a certain case in the news is proving to be a hell of a journey.
Here we segue from self-incrimination to an interesting sort of self-awareness.
The familiar depiction of Aladdin's lamp has always reminded me of a fancy little teapot, and I used that resemblance for a bit of visual misdirection in Friday's gag.
I dig the beat writers and the music they inspired, while also enjoying mass culture's warped reflection of the beat generation, as evidenced by this gag.
The "low ceiling" of the strip layout has an appropriately claustrophobic vibe.
Bonus Track
Tom Waits: "Underground" From the album Swordfishtrombones Island Records, 1983
Swordfishtrombones was a turning point for Waits, one of several in his long ongoing career. He began to move beyond the boozy beatnik hipster persona and more conventional style of his earlier records.
Although the albums that preceded it were rather weird in their own right, the songwriting and arranging became more experimental and idiosyncratic with this release.
More Bizarro for Your Hungry Eyes
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.
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
I plan to be away from the studio and computer this weekend, enjoying spring weather and the company of fellow humans, so this post will stick to the basics. Which, of course, includes a pipe pic.
Last month I shared a photo from an eBay listing titled "German Toy Head with Pipe." I then searched the web for "German toy pipe," and was shocked by the number of hits it returned.
This character is described as a hedgehog from the 1970s.
Apparently pipe-smoking toys were a thing in Germany.
A Pleasant Surprise
I was notified on Sunday that I'm one of three finalists for a 2023 National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award in the Newspaper Panels Division.
My fellow nominees are Dave Blazek and Nick Galifianakis, and I’m honored to be named alongside these two excellent cartoonists.
NCS members voted this week, and the awards will be presented in San Diego in August. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my expectations low.
I shared this news with subscribers to my weekly newsletter on Monday. If you'd like to read more behind-the-scenes stuff, you might consider checking it out. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Let's see if any of the week's Bizarro panels are award-worthy.
The Hemogoblin is a little-known beast from medical mythology. And yes, they usually wear Crocs.
"But do you know anyone who sells privacy screens?"
More than a few readers asked whether the Fish of Humility symbol appears in this panel. I didn't draw one, and it took me a while to see what they might be referring to. I'm guessing it was the flame on Liberty's torch. I can see why that could be mistaken for a fish tail. If you saw it as one, award yourself a point for finding an unintentional symbol.
We never deliberately put an incorrect number by the signature (except perhaps on April Fools' Day.) When that happens, it's an honest mistake by one of your mathematically challenged cartoonists.
I'm always grateful for readers who pay close attention to the details, even when they point out an error on my part.
I like this gag because the payoff is out of frame, and only appears in the reader's mind, and it happened in the past, so it's twice-removed from the scene we see.
In the strip layout, the character who speaks is also partly off-camera.
Fantasy football's got nothing on these make-believe musicians. If nothing else, they're dedicated to their craft.
Her alternate job title is Fair and Balanced Godmother.
That wraps up another batch of words and pictures from my Little Shop of Humor. Thanks for dropping by. Please come back next week for more of this kind of thing.
Bonus Track
Television: "Venus" From the album Marquee Moon Elektra Records, 1977
I was fortunate enough to see Television perform in my hometown twice. The first time, in 1977, they were the opening act for Peter Gabriel, and my recollection is that the audience gave them a poor reception. When they returned in 2015, they were properly welcomed.
Television's signature sound was highlighted by the intertwining guitars of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd.
Even More Bizarro Stuff for You
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.
