Do Not Touch Dave's Ladder

Today's Bizarro comic is dedicated to all of the wine lovers who follow this blog.

Here's the sketch I submitted to Dan Piraro. As usual, he worked his magic on the idea to bring it to the printed page. The mosquitoes' wardrobe, body language and accessories added delightful accents to the gag. It was just silly of me to show them drinking in the nude.

I don't know nearly enough to be snobbish about wine, but I do enjoy a glass now and then, and firmly believe in its health benefits, both physiological and psychological.

The last time my wife and I visited California's wine country, I was delighted to see several of Dan's comics tacked to the wall of David Coffaro's tasting room.

The Coffaro Winery is one of our favorites; a welcoming place without a hint of snobbery. If you find yourself touring Sonoma County, it's well worth a stop. They're very nice folks and they make terrific wines. Maybe you'll even see today's cartoon added to their gallery.

Enjoy notes of tobacco, peat, bubblegum, black pepper, coffee, chocolate, cat fur, marshmallow, crayon wax, provolone, pencil shavings, ketchup, cement, maple syrup, gunpowder, blood orange, paint thinner, hot sauce, and newsprint, accompanied by an underlying air of mordant jocularity, by viewing the previous Piraro/Wayno collaborations here.

Sketch Fest 4

Here are some recent sketchbook drawings for your amusement. These are usually done from photos in the New York Times over morning coffee, as a warm-up exercise.

This guy is clapping in nearly every photo I've seen of him

From a review of Gil Scott-Heron's recently published autobiography

It was hard to resist the temptation to add drool to this image

The Patron Saint of Ridiculous Coiffures blesses Willard the Obscure

JVGHEAD LIVES

Today's Bizarro comic is set in ancient Rome, probably around the time that Don Kirshner was getting started in the music business.

 

Bizarro CEO Dan Piraro revised the staging from that of my submission sketch (below), giving the singer a more classical pose, as if he's sitting for a portrait to be painted onto the side of a decorative urn.

My favorite aspect of this one is the fact that the gag requires "assembly" inside the reader's head, and can't actually be read aloud. I think it works well because the caption both reveals and reinforces the joke.

It was satisfying to discover a humorous twist on the old practice of substituting the letter V for U in an attempt to appear classically Roman. This was popular throughout the twentieth century among building designers, comic book artists, and engravers of coins.

My gag was partly inspired by a scene in the Mel Brooks film History of the World: Part 1.

Although I didn't recall the U-V substitution on the movie poster (the text at the top of the column reads IN MEL WE TRVST). However, I did remember a character played by comic actor Ron Carey who says "You are nuts. N-V-T-S, nuts!"

Maintain your sanity by reading all of our previous Bizarro collaborations here.

I Love a Man in Uniform

In today's Bizarro panel, I imagine an alternate career in law enforcement.

My submission sketch is composed very differently from Dan Piraro's published art.

Once again, Dan's changes improved on the sketch and really delivered the gag. The two viewers are completely unnecessary. They'd be required if they were commenting on the image on the TV, but in this case, they serve no purpose. It wasn't even necessary to show a television. The gag idea was a good one, but this sketch has too much clutter and detracts from the joke's impact.

Dan's version is direct, funny and much, much better. The reader becomes the TV viewer. We've all seen so many newsreaders in front of a graphic, that we immediately recognize the scene. The published version emphasizes the differences between the three-dimensional, realistically-rendered newsman and the exaggerated, cartoonish burglar figure. The rejiggered composition also allowed Dan to show the burglar at a much larger size. Nicely done, Mister Piraro!

Please steal a peek at our previous collaborations.  

By the way, the title of this blog post was itself stolen.

Occupational Hazard

Today's Bizarro features a little pun carried to its logical extreme:

Below is my submission sketch, which is simpler than the final art, but gets the idea across:

Stay tuned for more cartoonery over the next week or so, and please enjoy my previous joint efforts with the mighty Dan Piraro here.

End Zone Antics

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, for those who worship at that particular altar, and today's Bizarro comic acknowledges this oddball American institution.

My submission doesn't really qualify as a sketch, as I simply wrote new dialog for an existing cartoon, with minor visual alterations.

Since I have little knowledge of (and no interest in) such spectacles, friends and family may well question how I came up with a sports-related gag that doesn't consist of outright mockery. Please direct your blame at NPR's dandified commentator Frank DeFord. One December morning, he was in a lather over the practice of football players following a touchdown with a signature dance move or other mini-performance. That segment made me wonder whether these guys coordinate their celebratory acts in advance, to avoid the embarrassment of one player stealing another's thunder.

Bizarro's creator, Dan Piraro, edited the dialog (today's readers are probably more familiar with the Robot than the Charleston), and added the Super Bowl reference, which worked out rather nicely.

The players on this fictional team were named after gag writers who contribute to Bizarro, and whose jokes make me laugh, serving as a tip of the helmet to Andy Cowan, Cliff Harris, and the mysterious Ricardo Cabeza. Not mentioned in the dialog, Michael Capozzola also appears in the finished art. It was fun to sneakily acknowledge these talented and funny writers, whose work I always admire and often envy.

By the way, in the strip layout of today's comic, Dan tucked me into the crowd of athletes.

He achieved a decent comic likeness!

Please feel free to review our previous comical collaborations here.

Embarrassed to Death

Anyone who's shown up for an event in inappropriate attire (i.e. most Americans) will relate to today's Bizarro comic.

 

The submission sketch for this one was very sketchy indeed.

Dan Piraro's finished art includes a wonderfully elaborate paisley pattern on the Casual Reaper's shroud, which posed a bit of a challenge for the colorist. Also, it's no small achievement to draw skulls with recognizable facial expressions.

Our next collaborative comic will appear on Saturday, February 4, and the eighty-odd prior ones are all stored in this blog's Bizarro archive.

Enter the Dragon

"Gung Hay Fat Choy" is the traditional greeting for Chinese New Year. I've seen it translated as "Congratulations and Be Prosperous," which is as decent a greeting as any.

Dragon years include 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, and 2000.

During a busy quarter in late 2003, I missed my chance to design a Christmas mailing for my illustration clients. My wife suggested that I wait until January and send a Chinese New Year card instead. I quite liked that idea, figuring that a card arriving in January of February had a greater chance of being seen than one delivered during the December greetings onslaught.

We've celebrated Chinese New Year for many years, usually by organizing a group dinner with friends. We enjoy having an extra holiday in the dead of winter; particularly one which carries no familial obligations. The Chinese zodiac theme was already part of my vocabulary, and I was enthused to get started.

Once I completed that first card (for the Year of the Monkey), my obsessive nature forced me to continue annually, in order to complete all twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac. I'll send out the last postcard in this series in 2015.

Here's hoping you have a healthy and prosperous year.

Extraterrestrial Condiments

Today's Bizarro comic returns to Area 51, a place I've featured in an earlier cartoon.

For this simple gag, Dan's final art follows my submission sketch very closely.

The major difference (besides transforming it from a rough sketch to a fully-rendered image) is the change from a talking bottle of ketchup to a talking bottle of Heinz 57 Sauce. That tweak makes the connection to the number 57 a little stronger, and a bottle of 57 Sauce is more colorful than a bottle of ketchup, so it's a little stronger in that respect. 
 

Our previous collaborations are archived here under the Bizarro label. We've cooked up two new panels, which will appear in a couple of weeks, including a rare (for me) sports-related gag.

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By the way, Heinz products don't really come from outer space. They originate in my hometown, Pittsburgh, PA. In my elementary school days, the highlight of the year was a field trip to the Heinz plant. At the end of the tour, we'd receive a small gift box containing a couple of sample size products, and the highly-prized Heinz pickle pin.

Ce N'est Pas Une Bande Dessinée

Here's a phantasmagorical Bizarro cartoon for your enjoyment, or perhaps puzzlement, as the case may be:

And, here's the submission sketch:

Bizarro's creator, Dan Piraro, improved on the sketch in several ways. His revised text does a much better job of setting up the punchline in the caption box. As is often the case, this one was written backward, starting with the caption and then laboring to develop an image and text to tee it up. My original dialog conveys the idea that the couple is interested in buying the Daliesque property, but Dan's final text includes appropriately surreal prices as well. Viewing the drawings together, it becomes apparent that the size and position of the caption in Dan's version neatly delay the payoff for a heartbeat.

The "surrealtor" is based on René Magritte's iconic painting, The Son on Man, an image that pops up regularly in New Yorker cartoons. I used this same character as a comic springboard in an earlier cartoon. 

As a final masterstroke, Dan added the shrouded figure on the left, referencing another Magritte work, The Lovers. This not only reinforces the gag, but ups the otherworldliness of the drawing, and makes for a funny little reward to interested readers.

The sketch presented a good, funny idea, but definitely needed some refinement. Dan's revisions, particularly the new dialog, added more layers to the joke, turning it from a merely amusing biscuit into a rich, buttery, comedic croissant.

We'll be back with a new collaborative gag on Tuesday January 17, one which may have some extra appeal to my hometown readers.

If you've got time to kill, please feel free to browse our previous joint efforts here, or follow my occasional Twitterations.

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Update: Dan just posted this cartoon on his blog, and included multiple links to surrealist works referenced in the panel. Go take a look!