Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comic books. Show all posts

Saturday, July 12, 2025

A Quarter Turn'll Do Ya

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 

It's only lines on paper, folks!"
Robert Crumb

Greetings from Bizarro Studios North. I've lost a few days to personal obligations, and I need to redouble my cartooning efforts, so we'll dispense with a lengthy intro this week.

Today's pipe personality is French actor and filmmaker Jacques Tati.


Bizarro Field Correspondent Frank V. nominated Monsieur Tati, and I agree that he's a worthy subject.

Frank wrote:
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this pipe pix candidate long before this. Jacques Tati as Mr. Hulot is my absolute favorite comedy flick of all time.
Tati also knew how to use a pipe as a photographic accessory, and he was already on my radar. I searched my computer file folders and found another Tati image that I saved in 2021:


Big thanks to Frank for the suggestion and for reminding me that I had been meaning to feature Tati.


Without further ado, here are the latest of my published lines on paper.


What does it say about your cartoonist that I've imagined piggy banks as living beings in several cartoons over the years?

Another victim of departmental budget cuts.

"Frankie" is one of my favorite characters to draw, and he's appeared or been mentioned in over forty gags since I started here at Bizarro Studios.

I recently figured out that the word "nanobot" is actually an abbreviation for "nanobotany."

Friday's gag was by far my favorite of the week. As regular readers know, I like to use inanimate objects as characters in my work, and almost never add arms, legs, or faces, but using books as characters provided an opportunity to have it both ways.

The panel is sort of an homage to the 1946 Warner Brothers cartoon Book Revue, in which characters from book covers come to life and interact.

As a friend commented to me, "It's all comics."

I originally sketched this gag for myself and Dan, and we both assumed it was too risqué for a newspaper panel. Later, I shared it with one of our editors, just for a laugh. My email subject line was "Probably Too Naughty."

To my surprise, I was encouraged to run it and see what sort of reaction we get. Bizarro isn't a kids' comic, and newspaper strips and panels regularly use "hell" and "damn" and make occasional poop jokes, all of which were once verboten.

So, we're doing our part to see how far "the line" has moved. Zippy cartoonist Bill Griffith once told me that he thought newspaper comics ought to at least be as free as network television.

If we get any blowback, I'll report on it here.

Bonus Stack

Here's your hardworking ink monkey with my Bizarro output as of June 10, 2025. I keep all of my original comic art in archival storage boxes. Each box contains 150 drawings, all numbered and date-stamped. When I close the lid on another box, I stack them and take a photo. Although I share the pictures on social media, I mainly take them to remind myself that I’ve completed another 150 cartoons and that I'm building a body of work. 

It's important and motivational to document one's work and to make note of milestones.

The latest box is number sixteen, and the pile is the original art for 2,400 panels. That sounds like a lot, but I know cartoonists who've been doing daily comics for a lot longer than I, whose output exceeds 10,000 gags.

I'd be afraid to stack my boxes that high.

Thanks for checking in on the blog. I hope you come back next week for more stuff. I have an unusual batch of gags coming up next week, and am eager to hear how they land with readers.

Bonus Track

Fingerprintz: "Beam Me Up, Scotty"
From the LP The Very Dab
Virgin Records, 1979


Fingerprintz was a Scottish new wave (ish) band whose music was solid and catchy, but they're largely forgotten today.
In July 1979, I was aware of the band and had been buying their records when they played in Pittsburgh, though not as headliners. Fingerprintz had been hired as the backing band for the American singer Rachel Sweet, who was 16 or 17 years old at the time, and was on tour opening for the Cars.
After the show, we met the band (thanks to my friend Jim, whose record store was the place for all of your punk and new wave music at the time). We stopped by the store where they autographed records for us, and a group of us took them out for late-night pizza and many drinks.

I saw Fingerprintz again at Georgetown University in January 1980, playing their own music as the opener for XTC. They were a terrific live band and a perfect complement to XTC.
Cha Burnz (guitar) and Bogdan Wiczling, former members of Fingerprintz, performed in Pittsburgh in 1983 as part of Adam Ant's backing group. I barely recognized them in their Ant-gear and makeup.
Songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Jimme O'Neill and guitarist Cha Burns formed The Silencers in 1986, and they released ten albums between 1987 and 2006. 
The three Fingerprintz albums (The Very Dab, Distinguishing Marks, and Beat Noir) are available on Spotify and Apple Music.
It seems that in place of a lengthy intro, I wrote a verbose closing section. Oh, well...


Spicy Bizarro Links

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Saturday, July 05, 2025

I Thee Web

 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 

Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby - love. That's the secret. If we loved each other, we'd solve many more problems. And then this world would be gasser. 
Louis Armstrong

Throughout his lifetime, Louis Armstrong gave his date of birth as July 4, 1900. The date has never been definitively established, and probably never will be. Conflicting documents exist, and it's probable that he was born in 1901. A baptism certificate lists Armstrong's birthday as August 4, 1901.

Ricky Riccardi addresses the controversy in the first four pages of his excellent book Stomp Off, Let's Go. Riccardi's perfectly reasonable conclusion is:
Louis Armstrong, born on the Fourth of July, 1901. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, but that's the date this book will follow. In the end, it's all irrelevant; the bottom line is that Louis Armstrong was born, and that alone is something to celebrate.
I've cited Armstrong's quote in the past, and it's truer than ever. This weekend, I'm celebrating this truly great American.


Today's pipe pic is a beauty. It's a printed cardboard advertising sign that was probably displayed in a drugstore or tobacco shop in the early twentieth century.

I recently received it from Mike Michalik, a fellow Pennsylvanian and a collector of interesting ephemera. Mike hosted Auralcheology, one of my favorite podcasts, which sadly came to an end after 49 episodes. 

The podcast featured music from various eras and genres, with each episode highlighting a specific performer. Mike always provided fascinating biographical information and history along with the music.

Although no new episodes are being produced, you can still listen to the whole series on Spotify. Check it out.

Thanks to Mike for all of Auralcheology and for the excellent bit of advertising art.


I hope the current batch of Bizarro gags adds a few chuckles to your three-day weekend.


Melville's works are being updated for the twenty-first century, with varying degrees of success.

Often referred to as "Russian dolls," the character in Tuesday's panel wears the colors and sunflower symbol of Ukraine.

My fellow cartoonist and good pal Mark Parisi emailed me this week to say, "Nesting dolls. They are addictive, aren't they?" Indeed, they are.

Mr. Parisi is the creator of the long-running cartoon panel, Off the Mark, and is one of six deserving nominees for this year's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. 


Wednesday's gag presented the biggest challenge of the week, with two speech balloons, a caption, and a "split screen."

The strip layout was tricky, too, but I can't complain, since I have only myself to blame for the structure of the joke.

"The eights" is probably a high estimate, but at least he's wearing long pants.
Friday's gag celebrates my brief liberation from dialogue and captions. I'm always pleased when I'm able to get a joke across without words. If I can poke fun at a superhero at the same time, that's gravy.

The gag also works rather well as a vertical strip.

At least he chose an accurate name.


Thank you for taking the time to browse the blog. My words and pictures appreciate your eyeballs and brain.


Please come by again next Saturday.

Bonus Track

Louis Armstrong's Hot Five: "Who'sit"
Recorded in Chicago, June 16, 1926
Okeh Records 78rpm, 1926


This is a favorite around Bizarro Studios North. I'm particularly enamored of Armstrong's slide whistle solo.


More Bizarro Madness

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Saturday, April 26, 2025

Conversation Via Crustacean

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 


Happy Saturday from the Little Shop of Humor in Hollywood Gardens, PA. It's been a busy and tiring week here, so I'm skipping a lengthy intro this time around. Even so, we won't proceed without sharing a pipe-smoking personality.

Today's model is Ira Gershwin, who famously wrote lyrics for his brother George's musical compositions. The photo appeared in the New York Times Book Review last December, accompanying a review of a recent biography.

In the past, it was common for writers, scientists, actors, and academics to appear in posed photographs smoking or holding pipes. Maybe a pipe was seen as more refined than a cigarette, or perhaps it was meant to make the subject look thoughtful and engaged.

In any case, we're happy that so many examples exist.


Now, let's check out the week in Bizarro. Feel free to count the pipes, though they're rather sparse this week.


The tagline for this furniture is "Proximity Plus Privacy."

Tuesday's panel caused some head-scratching among readers. The caption came first, a play on "dial-up modem" for those who remember such relics. While trying to imagine a suitably surreal image for the caption, I remembered that Salvador Dalí had already created one in 1936, calling it the Aphrodisiac Telephone.

The assemblage was made from a standard 1930s phone with a plaster lobster mounted on the handset. The cartoon illustration deleted the handset and placed the lobster directly on top of the modem.

For the strip version, the two devices were repositioned slightly. In a break from tradition, the caption box is placed in the upper left corner, allowing space for the phone cord and the eyeball.

In Spelling Bee World, anger is tempered with restraint.

Choose your superhero name with care. Otherwise, you might end up with apostrophe syndrome.


We took some liberties with the design of Stonehenge.

The strip version offers a different perspective of the monument and uncharacteristically places the word balloon at the bottom of the layout.

The mystery endures.

Thanks for reading and supporting Bizarro. We'll be back in a week with more comics and commentary.

Bonus Track

Todd Rundgren: "Just Another Onionhead / Da Da Dali"
from A Wizard, A True Star
Bearsville Records, 1973


Todd Rundgren refers to Salvador Dalí and the lobster telephone in the second part of this two-song medley from his hallucinogenic masterpiece A Wizard, A True Star. 

This was the first album Rundgren released under his own name after two solo LPs credited to Runt.


A Bunch of Bizarro
Baloney

If you like what we do and appreciate that it's free, we encourage you to explore the following links.


 

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Saturday, April 05, 2025

Put That On Your Hat & Smoke It

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


Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity.
Frank Zappa

Anti-intellectualism is a fascinating subject, an us-versus-them psychology, rooted in obsession with others having more of something. Instead of admiring smart people and aspiring to become one, it's easier to cry, "No fair!" as if knowledge were a physical commodity to be divvied up. "If you have some, that's less for me!"

The flipside of Frank's observation is the pervasiveness of willing, even proud stupidity. People in charge of certain systems don't want their followers to think; the uninformed are more easily controlled by the powerful. 

Intelligence, reason, education, and science are so despised in some circles that they risk being legislated out of society. One hopes the pendulum will swing the other way, but it had better happen soon.

Mister Zappa left the physical plane more than thirty years ago. If only he could see us today.


Bizarro reader Michael P. sent us a pipe pic he snapped in the wild.


Michael writes:
I saw this planter at an antique store in Knoxville, Tennessee, but didn’t buy it.
This unusual piece is possibly as old as the 1950s and appears to have been a fairly popular item, based on the number for sale on Etsy and elsewhere.


Mother's Day is coming up next month, kids.

Thanks to Michael P. for recognizing a potential pipe pic and photographing it for us.


You can decide whether the latest Bizarro panels are stupid or smart. I try to find the sweet spot somewhere in between.

Romance comics were once a big thing, sometimes expanding into niche markets.

I usually include a bogus Secret Symbol count on April Fool's Day. This panel has five symbols, hinted at by the numeral in the crown. When I draw each comic, I assign a sequential number to the art, and this one was the 2,271st since I started working on the dailies—no fooling.

Wednesday's gag takes place in a corporate fretboardroom.

The musical gag prompted my favorite comment of the week over on BlueSky:
Superb work! The chord frames on the sheet music are realistic, and well spaced. The Gibson SG, Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster are all accurate, with correct curves on the Fender headstocks. Realistic controls on the amplifier. Few people will notice, but BRAVO!
Thanks to sombermoose for paying attention to the details. Comments like yours make the effort worthwhile.

Recontextualizing a familiar phrase or swapping in a different word can provide the seeds for a gag, as with this oracular offering.


"...and serve it in a paper cup."

At least poor word choices are easy to fix.

That's the latest from my Little Shop of Humor. Drop by next week for more cartoons and commentary.

Bonus Track

Michael Hurley: "Long Journey"
From the LP Long Journey
Rounder Records, 1984


Outsider folk musician, singer-songwriter, and sometime cartoonist Michael Hurley died this week at age 83. His debut album, First Songs, was released in 1963. Several of his subsequent LPs featured his wolf cartoon characters Jocko and Boone.

Hurley was a true American original.


A Panoply of Bizarro Prose & Products

If you like what we do and appreciate that it's free of charge, we encourage you to explore the following links.


 

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