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
A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little about him and his family, you might just jump in front of his killer and try to stop it. Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can’t act if you don’t know.
Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
In my household, we watch spooky movies throughout October. Some are works of art, and some are goofy romps. One film we revisit every year is 1983's Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on Ray Bradbury's 1962 horror/fantasy novel.
The text quoted above didn't make it into the movie, but it feels especially relevant. The lack of empathy and the level of cruelty on exhibit lately are directly related to what Bradbury called a refusal to know. The rampant "othering" of groups of our fellow humans makes too many feel they have permission to treat people as less than human. Being part of a community is wonderful, unless it devolves into tribalism.
Perhaps Halloween is popular for the same reason people celebrate Mardi Gras: Masks and costumes can obscure the arbitrary differences people with too much (or too little) power and wealth exploit to define groups of people as "them."
Today (Saturday), we'll be attending our town's annual Halloween parade, cheering the high school band in their themed costumes, and watching kids scramble for treats thrown their way.
I hope you all have an enjoyable Halloween, see a lot of fabulous costumes, and give and receive the best treats. Mask up, have fun, and meet and greet your neighbors.
Don't refuse to know.
Bizarro field correspondent Danielle A. spotted this vintage metal leaf tobacco box in a collectibles shop in her hometown.
The illustration on the box is charming and well-executed. The marine looks as if he's emerging from a porthole in its side.
Thanks to Danielle for taking the photo and sharing it with us. I love to see pipes found in the wild.
Oh, and if you ever see a Bizarro comic displayed somewhere out in the physical world, I'd be grateful for a photo of that, too.
Halloween creeps into Bizarro this week and next, although we keep the holiday in our dark hearts all through the year. Here's the latest sextet of cartoons.
Monday's gag was inspired by the Beatles knockoff records that proliferated in the 1960s. Designed to fool well-meaning grandmas, the phony groups had names like the Buggs, the Liverpools, or the Beat-A-Manias.
Metaphorical, if not inaccurate.
I offer my apologies to Charles Schulz.
"But I'm keeping the Dr. Brown's eyeball soda."
Their business card says "England's Newest Note Takers."
We wrap up with a reading from The Book of Rebellious Offspring 6:13-22.
Thanks for taking the time to read these boxes of badinage. Come back next week for more of this sort of nonsense.
Bizarro Bonus Track
The Kirby Stone Four: "You Came From Outer Space"
From Man I Flipped When I Heard the Kirby Stone Four Cadence Records LP, 1958
The Kirby Stone Four were one of many vocal quartets of the 1950s and early 1960s. They released several LPs on Columbia Records and other, smaller labels, but their debut on Cadence remains my favorite.
The group incorporated boisterous comedy, vocal impersonations, and a jazzy sensibility that set them apart from their contemporaries.
I chose "You Came From Outer Space" as today's bonus track because it's fitting for Halloween, and as a nod to Bizarro's Secret Symbol, the Flying Saucer of Possibility.
This song closes out the Rhino Records box set Brain in a Box: The Science Fiction Collection, a five-CD compilation released in 2000. Each disc is dedicated to a genre or style: Movie themes, TV themes, Pop, Lounge/Incidental, and Novelty. I served as an "A&R consultant" on the project, and the KS4 track was one of my suggestions that made the cut.
Rhino was known for extravagant packaging, and Brain was one of their most elaborate box sets.
It's designed to resemble a mad scientist's apparatus powered by a human brain, and it has lenticular images on three sides. It's a gem in my collection.
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