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
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. ~ Isaac Asimov
Welcome back, dear readers. I'm cautiously optimistic about the near future; a feeling I'm not used to. I wonder why. Has anything significant happened since our last post? Who knows. I'll just enjoy it for as long as it lasts, and do everything I can to ensure that it lasts well past the end of the year. I hope you will too.
As a reminder and motivation, I'll also ponder the words of Dr. Asimov. I haven't read his fiction in many years, though I devoured tons of it in my teens. Perhaps I should become acquainted with some of his other writings.
Oddly enough, our pipe pic of the week is another speculative fiction writer whose work I've enjoyed over the years.
Ellison often wrote while sitting in bookshop windows as a way of demystifying the creative act.
Jake Rossen published an excellent profile of Ellison earlier this year in Mental Floss. The piece includes a quote from Ellison discussing this unusual practice:
"I do it because I think particularly in this country people are so distanced from literature, the way it’s taught in schools, that they think that people who write are magicians on a mountaintop somewhere. And I think that’s one of the reasons why there’s so much illiteracy in this country. So by doing it in public, I show people it’s a job… like being a plumber or an electrician."
I found this Ellison photo and Rossen's article after I'd written last week's post about inspiration and creativity, and it was heartening to see an artist of Ellison's stature expressing these ideas more eloquently than I could.
The following cartoons were written and drawn in a more private setting.
Before rolling onto his side, this emperor was known as Ramses the Snorer.
Later, the clerk had to deal with someone looking for a single glass slipper, and an old woman who was house-hunting.
While attending college, he was known as G.I. Bill.
She could argue, but she wouldn't be heard.
I came up with the caption while playing a social media game called "Ruin an extinct group of archaic humans generally regarded as a distinct species by changing one letter."
This is the latest in my ongoing experimentation with inanimate objects as gag cartoon protagonists. I like to challenge myself to use the things/characters are they are in real life, without adding arms, legs, faces, etc. I can't quite explain why, but I find this approach to be funnier than if I had added physical human features.
That brings us to the end of another blog entry. Thanks for checking it out, and please consider coming back next week for more words, pictures, and commentary.
Bonus Track
Slim Gaillard: "Dunkin Bagel"
Circa 1946
Bulee "Slim" Gaillard (1911-1991) was a singer and multi-instrumentalist who spoke six languages, and created his own hipster jive called "Vout-O-Reenee." If any you ever spot a copy of Slim's Vout-O-Reenee Dictionary at a flea market or thrift shop, it would make a lovely gift for a grateful cartoonist.
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Asimov, Ellison, and Gaillard, eh? I'll raise you a Vonnegut, a Basie, and a Waller! : )
ReplyDeleteEverybody wins!
DeleteNot anthropomorphizing inanimate objects is much funnier, probably because it's a tad more absurd. Love it!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, and it's also more low-key and deadpan, which I prefer. It's not shouting at you.
DeleteI’ve added Asimov’s quote to my email sign-off….truer words never before a spoken. Read all the Asimov,Clarke,heinlein, etc etc I could get my hands on.
ReplyDeleteA fine sign-off, indeed. Here's another quote from a favorite author:
Delete"I like to say that the 51st state is the state of denial. It’s as though a huge comet were heading for us and nobody wants to talk about it. We’re just about to run out of petroleum and there’s nothing to replace it."
Kurt Vonnegut, in 2005
Anything is possible, my friend.
ReplyDeleteIn my teens, I belonged to the Science Fiction Book Club, and was always receiving boxes of books in the mail. I was also a subscriber to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, where the first thing I read was the Gahan Wilson cartoon.
I’ve been reading sci-fi for about 60 years now. I’m assuming that I started around 10. I still have most of my adult themed SF books. I started out with Asimov, then just about every major writer, then I got hooked on Robert A Heinlein. Harlan Ellison of course preferred the term speculative fiction. BTW I liked your drawing of the cartoon with the alien ship on its side. I’ve never seen that perspective of it before. I like improvisation too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your literary memories. We covered a lot of the same territory as young'uns.
Delete