Funny Furniture

Today's Bizarro comic is my latest collaboration with Dan Piraro, and is meant to contribute a bit of absurdity to your day:

Here's my original concept sketch:

 

This is a case of a joke emerging from a random doodle. Sometimes I scribble while listening to music, talking on the phone, or watching TV. For some reason, I sketched an upside-down guy talking to a woman who could have been a sales clerk, or maybe a doctor. A commercial for an adjustable mattress caught the corner of my ear, and I added a bed to the composition.

Dan suggested we try a more realistic representation showing what the guy would have to go through in order to sleep on such a tiny bed, and he dashed off this hilarious rough with his reply:

Removing the magical aspect improved the gag. In my sketch, the customer actually looks  comfortable and matter-of-fact, perfectly balanced on his head. In Dan's finished cartoon, you can almost feel the twist in his neck. His bunched-up pants and exposed bellybutton add nice touches as well. Sadly, the clerk's see-through dress didn't make it into the published piece.

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The very entertaining Bizarro blog has moved to a new location. Dan posts every few days, and includes interesting commentary on his recent comics along with surprising and sometimes disturbing links.

Stay tuned for more collaborations, and in the meantime, review our previous joint efforts here.

Ich Bin Ein Emöticon

Today's Bizarro comic is the most recent collaboration between Dan Piraro and yours truly, and imagines an early appearance of the late-century phenomenon of making faces out of punctuation.

Here's my original concept sketch:

Of course, the second word balloon is entirely unnecessary, and the finished cartoon is much better because of the editing (not to mention Dan's fantastic art).

If you enjoy Bizarro (and who doesn't?) I recommend the Bizarro iPhone app, which delivers each cartoon to your phone, and gives you acces to a full year of dailies, which, according to iTunes, may include the following:

Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes

All that for a buck ninety-nine. You can't go wrong!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Continuing a tradition I began in 2004, I just mailed my annual Chinese New Year card.

I'll complete the series of all twelve animals in 2015. I haven't decided whether I'll start the cycle again with the next Year of the Monkey in 2016.

If you, or someone you know, is turning 50 this year, their Chinese zodiac sign is the Ox. The Year of the Ox painting from my 2008 show animaliAAstroligica is still available, and would make a great 50th birthday gift. View it here.

Coming up on Friday: Another new Bizarro cartoon written by yours truly.

Hell With the Lid Off 2011

My friends at Kelly's Bar & Lounge here in Pittsburgh have again commissioned me to create the advertising for Hell With the Lid Off, their annual barleywine festival.

A signed & numbered limited-edition 11" x 17" full-color offset poster is now available at my online store, and I will also be offering them during the festival. Last year's poster recently sold out.


Kelly's will also have a two-color tee shirt available during the festival. Here's a preview of the tee:

Hell With the Lid Off is a great event, which features Kelly's famously great bar food, multiple flights of craft-brewed barleywine, and a sellout crowd. Highly recommended.

What Is Reality?

For my first post of the new decade, here's today's Bizarro comic. It's the latest in an ongoing series written by yours truly and drawn by my good chum, the award-winning Dan Piraro.

It's a simple little turn of phrase commenting on the unreality of so-called reality television, and people's obsession with it.

Here's the original submission, scanned from my sketchbook:

My version showed a fretting youngster speaking to a child psychologist. Mister P changed her to an adult and chose a "crane shot" view. 

I mentioned in an earlier post how much I admire the way Dan's characters often have  wonderfully deadpan facial expressions, and today's comic is another fine example.

Click here to view our previous collaborations. 

We've discussed mounting an exhibit of our collaborative cartoons, and it looks like it will happen in late Spring 2012.

Art History in the Funnies

Today's surreal Bizarro comic is yet another joint effort by Dan Piraro and yours truly.

Magritte has been the subject of quite a few New Yorker cartoons, but I believe he's a rarity in the daily comics. Had this run in the New Yorker, the explanatory label "surrealist" would probably have been unnecessary. The tattoo is a reference to Magritte's painting The Treachery of Images, and the apple is from his famous 1964 work The Son of Man, a favorite of the New Yorker cartoonists.  

Here's my original sketch:

A few days later, Dan sent me this brilliantly revised version:

Perfect! Mister P found a way to incorporate the apple in front of the guy's face, and retain the "Muscle Beach" feel of the gag. This added layer enriches the joke (which, sadly, is probably lost on most readers of the funny pages).

Check out our previous collaborations here.

Split Decision

The Federales rejected our original design for East End Brewing Company's Coffee Porter. They decoded our "eye opener" rebus, and decided that it could be construed as a health claim.

They agreed to approve the design if we separated the images and released the beer using two different labels:

Now, East End completists will have to buy two bottles, and display them side-by-side. 

Buying more than one bottle of any of East End's brews is always a good idea.

Careful, man, there's a beverage here!

I've had a couple of fun local gigs this month involving some of my favorite liquid refreshments.

First up is a t-shirt design for Espresso a Mano, an artisanal coffee shop where I have been known to have a cup or three. Keeping things very local, the screen printing was done by our good buddy Michael "Zombo" Devine, a true Renaissance Man.

Here's the molto semplice design, followed by a nice stack of shirts, ready for purchase:

EaM's proprietor, Matt Gebis, is practically giving these away for $14 a pop.

:::

I'm also working (once again) with my good neighbor, the incredibly busy brewmaster Scott Smith of East End Brewing. One of Scott's newest brews manages to combine beer and coffee. It's not unlike those carrot-parsley-celery combos that provide the benefits of multiple nutritional drinks in one satisfying concoction. The new Coffee Porter uses coffee from Indiana Pennsylvania's Commonplace Coffeehouse & Roastery.

We haven't received final approval from the Feds yet, but the latest changes they asked for were very minor, so we feel safe giving a preview:

The name Scott originally submitted didn't meet with the government's approval -- they feared it might be interpreted as a health claim -- but it's very cleverly shown in the rebus illustration on the label. Sneaky, aren't we?

East End will soon have new improved growler suits available, to keep your jug o' suds at drinking temperature. The new version of this insulated valise, which we're still fussing over, will feature a lush velour-like (or at least velour-looking) interior.

Bringing things full circle, I've learned that Commonplace is one of Espresso a Mano's suppliers, so it turns out that this entire post is about drinking, drawing, and designing in Western PA.

Cheers!

:::

UPDATE 11/19/10

Well, the bureaucrat took a second look at the Coffee Porter label and bounced it. The official word is:

"Upon second review, the symbols state "EYE OPENER". This implies a physical effect that the copffee (caffeine) will have on the consumer."

Interestingly, it took a second review to decode the illustrations! They were apparently so excited, they added a "p" to the word "coffee."

Back to the (digital) drawing board. 

Maybe we can make a t-shirt with just the symbols on it.

Blah, Blah, Blog

Today's Bizarro is the latest in what's becoming a satisfyingly large pile of collaborations between Dan Piraro and yours truly. As with the last one, I'll start with my initial sketch, followed by a trail of email messages wherein we deconstructed and rebuilt the gag, hammering it into something usable.

The idea for this joke came from an email from my friend and neighbor Gwyn Cready, an award-winning writer of romance novels involving time travel and numerous steamy interludes. She recently announced a "blaunch" party for the publication of her latest book.

I immediately latched onto the term "blaunch" and recognized its meaning to be "web launch," in the same way that the word "blog" is a blending of the words "web" and "log."

Following that template, I came up with this rough, attempting to point out the  artificiality of much online existence:

I quite liked the rhythm of this, with the familiar example (blog) followed by two similarly-constructed coinages. The surprise of these odd-sounding words coupled with the recognition of their derivation was the intended source of the laugh, in addition to the commentary on the unreality of the web-based interactions (although that's an easy target.)

Initially, Dan rejected the gag, but I persisted in trying to make something of it. Our email dialog, additional revisions, and the final version follow:

Piraro: This one is kind of fun but I don't think I'll use it. It would work better if "blog" was actually a word without the b, like the other two words are. Know what I mean?

Wayno: Ah, but it is a word on its own! Blog is a shortened form of Web log. That's why I used "L" words in the rest of the text (web-love, web-life). I try to fact-check all of my gags! Of course, it's your call.

P: You're right about the blog thing, but it doesn't have the right ring to it somehow. I don't know, it's a judgment call.

W: Yeah, I agree. "Blog" has become a word unto itself, and its origin is already so obscure as to be pretty much irrelevant. Too bad!

Then, a day later, I submitted a revised version, with the email subject line: Take 2, or Beating a Dead Emoticon

W: I'm taking a shot at salvaging the cartoon with the dude at the computer declaring his love. The point of my obscure wordplay in the original version was to emphasize the unreality of the situation ("web-love of my web-life"). This version piles on the cyber/virtual/simulated synonyms.

It's not clear in the rough, but there's an avatar for the guy in the corner of the screen that's meant to be a suave tuxedo-clad smoothie, and the girl on the screen is meant to look artificial, with a bit of scenery behind her in that awkward, forced "Farmville" perspective.

It's probably too much to cram into a tiny space, and maybe not all that effective, but I'm giving it that old college try! My never-say-die approach worked with the Atheist Anagram Society! If you decide to pass on it, then I'll just consider it to have been a good mental workout.

P: I like this angle, too, but I'm wondering if it could be simpler. I don't know anything about "Farmville" except that it is a virtual world of some kind and lots of people are doing it. Could it be that a guy in a bar is saying to a hot babe, "Thanks for the invitation, but I'm dating someone in Farmville"?  Seems a simpler, funny way to poke fun at virtual lives. Let me know if you think this works or if you can think of a similar way to do this joke.

W: Oh yeah! I like it. A guy at a bar talking to a hot babe makes it even clearer that he's passing up the real for the virtual. And you're right, a simpler approach has more impact. 

Since we're fussing over this endlessly, I suggest editing one two-letter word, changing "in" to "on." So it will now read: "Thanks for the offer, but I'm dating someone on Farmville."

I think "on Farmville" emphasizes that it's virtual, whereas "in Farmville" sounds like it could possibly be a real place. 

This has to be the longest route ever taken to get to a punchline, but I really enjoy the back-and-forth. Plus, recounting all of the iterations will make for an interesting blog post!

P: Okay, it's a go. But the last question I have is, are there people on Farmville? I'm assuming so, but I don't want a bunch of emails correcting my logic.

W: Ha! Good question. Yes, there are people. And they look ridiculous!

Finally, here's the published cartoon, beautifully executed by Mister Piraro:

Another tortuous journey from concept to execution, with you readers dragged along for the ride. I'm very pleased with the published piece, which is effective and stripped down to the essentials. As I study Dan's work, I'm often impressed by the deadpan, matter-of-fact expressions and body language of the comic's cast. An outrageous statement can become a lot funnier when the character delivering it is completely blasé.

As always, our earlier joint efforts can be found by searching for the Bizarro label. 

Watch this space for more.


PS: I apologize for the inconsistent paragraph spacing in this post. Blogger can be uncooperative, and the more you try to make adjustments to compensate for its idiosyncratic behavior, the worse it becomes.

Black Tie & Tails 2010

Billboard on Bigelow Boulevard in Pittsburgh

October 27, 2010