Showing posts with label cowboys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cowboys. Show all posts

Saturday, May 17, 2025

The Ink Monkey Speaks

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 


Greetings from Bizarro Studios North, where the cartoon sausage is made. Recently, I put in some longer hours to get extra distance between myself and our neverending deadlines, and I have had some success.

I'm using the breathing room to prepare for a rare side gig later this month: I'm scheduled to give a talk for the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators about my prior illustration career and discuss how I ended up doing Bizarro. I've written my script and am starting to assemble a PowerPoint deck. After that, I'll review them and try to make the presentation as non-boring as possible. Wish me luck. You know how I can ramble on about cartooning...

Who knows, there may be some material I can share in the blog or newsletter.


Today's pipe pic comes to you courtesy of Bizarro reader Grieg T.


Grieg writes:
I found these at a local auction. "Fun for all ages." These kiddies look dazed: the girl—and the boy—with far away eyes. But they look happy!
Big Bizarro thanks to Grieg for this relic from the good old days, when the young ones had toys to model adult addictive behaviors.


I'll include a few recent cartoons in my presentation to the illustrators' group, based partly on their Instagram popularity. If you have any particular favorites from the year so far, let me know what they are.


Meanwhile, here's the latest batch of words & pictures.



Health-conscious ghosts avoid sugary cereals such as Boo-Berry.

 
Did you know that Oscar Wilde's gothic horror novel was based on an ancestor of his who was a marotte carver?

If the customer had requested "ranch dressing on the side," Henri would have pulled up a chair.

For our international readers, ranch dressing is an odd American item developed in the 1950s, and some citizens consider it a staple. 

In early 2024, while enjoying a wonderful Lunar New Year dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant, we overheard patrons at a nearby table express disappointment that ranch dressing wasn't available to go with their menu items. The inevitable follow-up question? "How about ketchup?"

This panel arrived less than a week after our previous clown-based gag. We have a reputation to uphold.

Friday's panel takes place in a lab that conducts some major league research.

According to Urban Dictionary, hyberdating describes "a situation in which two people date so exclusively that you rarely see them." 


That wraps up Week 20 of the year 2025. We'll return next Saturday with more of this material if that interests you.

Bonus Track

Dave Bartholomew: "The Monkey"
Imperial Records 78/45, 1957


Dave Bartholomew, who lived to be 100, was a major figure in New Orleans music and American popular music in general. He was a bandleader, composer, musician, vocalist, producer and arranger. Bartholomew co-wrote, arranged, and produced many of Fats Domino's big hits, and his band backed Domino on records and onstage.


Scads of Bizarro Stuff

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, October 19, 2024

Twenty Gallon Hat

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

[Cats] teach you that you can have a happy life without knowing anything at all. They take care of themselves, and they make their own fun. To be an individual, to be self-content—those are nice qualities for a life.
Ai Weiwei

As someone who has lived with cats for most of my adult life, I can vouch for Ai WeiWei's observation.

Despite their reputation for being aloof and picky, my experience is that our feline companions embody the Zen idea of living a life of peaceful simplicity.

The least we can learn from them is to be aware of and appreciate life's everyday pleasures—like reading the funnies, for example.


Bizarro reader Pat M. of Lincoln, Nebraska was kind enough to send me a photo of his 2003 painting of his late Uncle Forrest.



Pat is also a musician who's been making home recordings of his original songs since the 1970s and now posts them on his YouTube channel.


He notes, "I am adding video and slideshow content so the listener/viewer doesn't have to stare at the same photo throughout the entire song."


Sincere thanks to Pat for sharing his art and music. Our community of readers continues to impress me.


And hats off to Uncle Forrest.



Let's see how many pipes turn up in the latest batch of Bizarro gags.



This is a rare chance to tell someone they're too small for their britches.



What's an antonym for cubism?


Wednesday's gag depicts a common subaquatic anxiety.


I've found that I'm better at playing ukulele than I ever was at the guitar, which I attribute to a more favorable strings-to-fingers ratio. The plush bear should probably go for voice lessons, although he might be good at fuzz guitar.

By the way, doesn't the instructor look snazzy in his Irön Bunnies öf Dööm t-shirt? You can get one from the Comics Kingdom Bizarro shop!


It might be time for the old woodcarvers' home.


Sometimes I think a gag will be nice and easy to draw, and then spend as much time on it as a more complicated image.


At least the strip conversion was simple. Apologies to newspaper readers who had to rotate their papers by ninety degrees.

Wow, there was just one pipe in the entire week. I'll try to do better next time.

Jazz Pickle for a Jazz Pickle

Recently, Beej from NYC modeled a Pipe of Ambiguity shirt for us. He also ordered a Jazz Pickle shirt for his friend the bandleader Ed Palermo. He delivered it when Ed played a gig at the prestigious Iridium Jazz Club, a former hangout of guitar great Les Paul.



Those beaming smiles tell me that Ed was happy with the gift from his friend.


Next time I'm in New York, I hope to catch Ed's big band, which performs creative arrangements of originals, jazz standards, and surprises such as the music of Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, the Beatles, and even Edgar Winter.


Big thanks to Beej for supporting cartoonists and musicians.


If you’d like to be a Bizarro fashion model, send your picture, along with a comment to WaynoCartoons(at)gmail(dot)com.


Fine print: By sending your photo, you permit us to share it online. Readers will be identified by first name only. Whether or not you send a picture, we truly appreciate your purchase of Bizarrowear!



Thanks, as always for your Bizarro readership.


Drop by next week for more of this stuff.


Bonus Tracks

The Ed palermo Big Band: Waka/Jawaka
From The Ed Palermo Big Band Plays the Music of Frank Zappa
Astor Place Recordings, 1997




Naturally, I've been investigating Ed Palermo's music. Here, his big band plays the title tune from Frank Zappa's Waka/Jawaka album.

More Bizarro For Your Enjoyment


  

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Saturday, August 17, 2024

Ain't It Funny

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 second half of August is becoming extra busy for your cartoonist, and I'm composing this post ten days in advance, so please forgive me if anything momentous happens before this is published and I don't remark on it.


Since I'm trying to complete an extra week or two of comics before September, it's fitting to feature a comics-related pipe pic.

This is of course a Thimble Theatre panel by the great Elzie Segar. My old buddy and esteemed colleague Steve Bissette posted this on his Facebook page recently.

The pipe may be a tiny part of the image, but it still qualifies. Also, it depicts a world I'd like to live in.

Thanks to Steve for adding some levity to the Book of Face.


Here's a review of the latest Bizarro gags. Bizarro is distributed by King Features Syndicate, making us Popeye's neighbors or maybe his co-workers.


Monday's gag may have been partly inspired by the story of a patient of psychologist Oliver Sacks. The man was an accomplished jazz drummer and Tourette's patient who had a history of experiencing severe tics. When the patient took medication to control the symptoms, he lost the spontaneity that fueled his musical improvisations. Along with Dr. Sacks the patient eventually decided to use the medication on weekdays to help him function in day-to-day society, and he'd go off the meds on weekends to be a wilder, freer improviser.


Who doesn't enjoy the occasional alien probing gag?


The strip layout had a more panoramic horizon but sacrificed some foreground elements.

On the same subject, here's an old one I particularly enjoyed doing:
 

I never pass up an opportunity to draw a ventriloquist dummy.


A restaurant in my neighborhood serves a "deconstructed" Bloody Mary, which makes for a tasty science experiment.

Maybe Cousin Erlenmeyer has a wild side after all.


And their bartender makes a nice glass of slop.


That's farmcore, dude.


Odds are that this has happened in real life somewhere.


After I completed the art, we decided that the client's outfit made him look like a (smarmy) doctor in a lab coat, so I executed a wardrobe change. 

That wraps up another batch of frivolity from your humble ink-monkey. Thanks for dropping by.


Bonus Track
Huey "Piano" Smith and His Clowns: "Pop-Eye"
Ace Records single, 1962



Huey "Piano" Smith was one of the giants of New Orleans music and was hugely influential on the development of early rock and roll. He was a true entertainer, and his records are almost all worthwhile.


A Whole Lotta Bizarro


  

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Saturday, July 13, 2024

Piracy, Puppetry & Product Placement

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

I have a plan to consolidate my worries. I'm going to try to find a shrink who can talk all my worries from my head down to my arm, then to my hand, then finally down to one long fingernail. Then—wham!—all I have to do is clip the fingernail, and all my worries will be gone.

Virgil Partch (1916-1984)

Small wonder that the late Virgil Partch is one of my cartoon heroes. He was never shy about expressing his anxiety about working as a freelancer and facing deadlines. At the time of his death, he was two years ahead of deadline on his Big George comic strip. One could rightfully say that his art wasn't as great as it once was, but I can understand his motivation. 

If I could get four to six months ahead of deadline, I'd be a more relaxed dude. Well, maybe not, since the outside world gives us so much to be worried about. But my job as a cartoonist is to offer moments of relief from our everyday horrors, and I'll keep trying to provide that service.


Today we have a fine art pipe pic.

N.C. Wyeth: Self-Portrait
Tempera on hardboard, 1940

I tip my summertime cocoanut straw porkpie to Bizarro reader Jeff M for suggesting this charming painting by one of America's best-known artists.


As many of you know, in addition to the standard Bizarro panel, I also make an alternate version for newspapers that run it in a horizontal strip layout. 

This week, each gag required a different approach to fit the widescreen layout. In today's blog entry, every panel is followed by its strip for those who care to compare and to study some of my tricks for rearranging the art.




Monday's gag was the subject of some focused speculation on Arnold Zwicky's blog, which is mostly about language, but frequently discusses comics. Mr. Zwicky and one of his readers spent considerable time trying to determine whether the musicians in the panel were based on actual people.

I responded to Mr. Z and said that I like to do my homework when depicting real people, but these drawings are simply shorthand characters that are intended to read as hard rock or heavy metal musicians, of whom I have little knowledge. 

He sent me a very kind reply:
Ah, that was the other possibility -- that these images are coming from your subconscious, which is much richer than you credit. You have a truly gigantic bank of images, most of them partial and schematic, in your head -- it's one of your great powers as a professional artist --  and you mine them constantly in your work, rarely with any sense of where they come from. I assume that at some point you came across images of Kerry King as a thrash metal guitarist, and then bits of these images surfaced when you were trying to imagine a thrash metal guitarist. So you conjured up a nice-guy version of Kerry Fucking King (who is an amazing guitarist but otherwise a major asshole).

 You'll see that I'm posting more on your cartooning style, in some detail. That's pretty much orthogonal to the question of where your ideas come come from, but also interesting to me. How the craftsman does their job.
I recommend reading his blog, and truly appreciate people who care enough about comics to do in-depth research when they have questions about a cartoon.

Thanks to Arnold Zwicky and David Preston for identifying someone who could almost be the guitarist known as Zinc.




Even if you make him walk the plank, he floats.



Speaking of language in comics, I agonized over this caption and changed it multiple times. I finally chose Discotheque Support over Disco Tech Support. I thought that the three-word caption spelled out the gag too explicitly.



It's been almost a month since our last clown gag, so here's a new one.


Note: I'm still working out some issues over a grotesque toy from my childhood.



The reply was, "He's extinct to me."



I need not remind you why the 2024 Bizarro calendar is titled Cowboys & Clowns. 

I'd definitely buy a jug of Saddle Bag Rye.

Thanks for viewing my digital brain dump. I welcome and appreciate your comments, questions, and pipe pics, even if I can't always reply. Rest assured that I read every one.

See you next week!

Bonus Track

The Kirby Stone Four: "Clyde"
from the LP Rippin' N' Soarin'
Coronet Records, 1957-ish


A selection from one of the many oddball LPs I acquired in my years of shopping at Jerry's Records. The Kirby Stone Four were an unconventional vocal quartet who added a touch of jazz and a goofball sense of humor to many of their recordings. This LP is mostly okay, but "Clyde" is a standout.


The group fascinated me, and in the mid-1990s, I started putting together a proposal for a Best of the Kirby Stone Four compilation, which never came to be. I had a brief phone conversation with Eddie Hall, the "little guy" in the group. That's Eddie on the far right in the photo above. He was enthusiastic about the idea of a compilation, and during our call he told me about their appearance on The Judy Garland Show, which required multiple takes.

If you ever run across their Cadence LP Man, I Flipped When I Heard the Kirby Stone Four, grab it. You'll thank me.


A Hunka Hunka Burnin' Bizarro



  

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