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
Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty.
~Albert Camus
Pittsburgh will soon become the country's largest city without a daily newspaper. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is closing after 240 years. They're not going to a digital-only publication; they're pulling the plug and locking the doors on May 3. The same owners recently did the same to the city's last remaining alt-weekly.
The Post-Gazette is owned and run (into the ground) by a pair of spoiled twin nepo babies who inherited it. In 2020, they unilaterally, without negotiation, cut union workers’ contractual health care plans (among other things). Their actions led to a strike lasting more than three years.
On January 7, the Supreme Court denied their appeal of a federal court finding that they had, in fact, violated the terms of the union contract. So they decided to close up shop.
The closing of an individual newspaper is, of course, bad news for cartoonists, but that's nothing compared to the loss of a daily paper for citizens of a major American city.
The Post-Gazette was far from perfect, but it employed many quality journalists and was an important news source for Pittsburghers. If, as the Washington Post hypocritically features on its banner, "Democracy dies in darkness," the owners of the P-G have unscrewed one more bulb.
For those interested, I recommend recent columns and newsletters by people closely involved with the paper's history.
I'll close with a quote from Eric Deggans's Substack:
It’s a sad harbinger for the fate of news outlets across the country; increasingly let down by classless owners who never seem to understand or truly value the newsrooms they are trying to lead.
On a lighter note, our whimsical pipe pic comes from Bizarro reader Steve I.
We were in Istanbul in 2016 and I purchased two meerschaum pipes at the Grand Bazaar. Meerschaum (sepiolite) is a type of clay found in Turkey and they make pipes out of it, usually with intricate carvings. I believe the ones I have were carved by machine as the patterns are very precise and consistent. Some are carved by hand and can be expensive. If you burn tobacco in the pipes they turn brown from the heat. My apologies if you know that already.
The little guy posing with them is Flash Turtle. He has a long history and I could provide it to you, but I've found that it bores most people. He used to have a Facebook page of his own where I posted his travel adventures, but I eventually became fed up with Facebook and deleted both of our accounts. Flash was made sometime in the 80s and the company is long out of business. I could provide more info about that too, but again, it's bores most people.
A tip of the Bizarro chapeau to Steve for the photo and the info on meerschaum. I'm sure Flash Turtle is as happy to be away from social media as Steve is.
Pittsburgh may be losing a place to see Bizarro in its classic halftone-dot-on-newsprint form, but we'll always have digital comics. Here are my latest.
I drew this from experiences in previous ill-fitting jobs. There's nothing like a day of mandatory fun to backfire on misguided management.
The Hans Christian Andersen Hotel is used to accommodating picky customers.
This cartoon depicting two warrior princesses encountering the Nerd of the Rings drew an inexplicably angry comment on the Comics Kingdom site. I still don't know what to make of it.
I should have reminded him that if someone is forcing him to read the comics, he should tell a teacher, parent, or other adult.
Are sleazy used car salespeople still a thing?
If only it were that easy.
The strip layout ended up looking more ominous.
If the newbie fails to complete it successfully, will he be sent to hell, or back to hell on earth?
Thanks for checking out the funnies, folks. We'll have a new batch for you in a week.
Bonus Track
The Jam: "News of the World"
Polydor Records single, 1978
A Boatload of Bizarro Blather
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore the following links.
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