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
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Alan Watts
Change affects us daily in one way or another. Over the past week, we learned that our favorite local music venue, owned by people who have become our friends, is closing its doors in a few weeks after fifteen years of hard work, excellent wines, and unwavering support of musicians.
The co-owners issued a public statement, reading in part:
Although this is painful and heartbreaking for all of us, we remain
eternally grateful for the love and support the community and the scene
have bestowed upon us.
We stand in awe of the level of
talent that has graced our stages over the years, and we implore
everyone to continue to support them wherever they perform.
Please also let this serve as a call to action to do everything you
can to support your local independent music venues, especially those
that support and host local music. These
rooms are the lifeblood of this art form, and they desperately need your
patronage.
And though our stages may go dark, the memories will burn bright in our hearts forever.
I had the pleasure of performing there many times over the years, and enjoyed hearing countless wonderful musicians as a patron of the club. Even so, we now wish we had gone more often.
I believe that our friends who have run the business will come through this huge change all right, but we'll all feel the loss of a great place to gather for music and friendship for a long time.
Alan Watts makes sense when he suggests plunging into change to make sense of it.
It's also a good idea to remember that nothing we care about will last forever, and neither will we, so let's appreciate what we have while we have it (and while we're still around).
I found this meta image of a pipe smoking another pipe, but must also credit Bizarro reader Stuart VR for leading me to it.
Stuart sent me Craigslist ad for a pipe with a bowl modeled after a Star Wars character. It was crafted by a famous Turkish pipemaker, Sadik Yanik, and I posted that photo in June.
Naturally, I had to find Yanik's webpage, and spent a ridiculous amount of time browsing the selections, where I spotted the Popeye model.
So, we offer another tip of the Bizarro porkpie to Stuart for sending me down a Meerschaum rabbit hole a few months ago.
When I'm not wasting time scrolling through photos of cartoon character heads, I write and draw Bizarro. Here's the latest six-pack o' laffs.
The software may not be intelligent, but it certainly mimics human behavior.
July 20 through 25 was Crash Test Dummy week. It resulted from an intense writing session where the gags about dummies poured out of my head. I couldn't draw them fast
enough, and my sketchbook pages are almost indecipherable. Rather than a normal gag-writing day, it felt more like a possession.
I ended up drafting a total of ten crash test gags. I used six last week, the above this week, and I have one more in the pipeline. The remaining two weren't strong enough to use, but I'll share them in my Substack newsletter.
It's a reserved preserve.
This panel includes a rare variant Secret Symbol: The Invoited Boid.
Thank you, Jerome "Curly" Howard.
My understanding is that Elsa Lanchester's real (red-auburn) hair was teased up and augmented for the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein film. I almost colored this panel in gray tones, but decided against it. The other character is my version of the wonderful Teri Garr as Ilsa in Mel Brooks's 1974 Young Frankenstein. Caricature isn't my strongest suit, but I was relatively happy with the likenesses of both actors.
Just a reminder that theComics Kingdom Summer Shop has a full selection of new and old Bizarro T-shirts, coffee mugs, hats, and other items, which help keep your cartoonist in caffeine.
Bonus Track
Daevid Allen: "Stoned Innocent Frankenstein"
from Bananamoon
BYG Records LP, 1971
I'm an unashamed fan of the goofy 1970s psychedelic-space-hippie recordings of Daevid Allen (1938-2015) and his band/family/collective, Gong. Friday's cartoon reminded me of this tune from early in his career.
I'm also quite fond of this quote on mortality from Daevid Allen:
I can only hope that during this journey, I have somehow contributed to the happiness in the lives of a few other fellow humans.
Buckets of Bizarro Bric-A-Brac
If you like what we do and appreciate that it's still free, we encourage you to explore the following links.
