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
Ya never too hot, never
too cold never too young, never too old never too skinny, never too
fat never too dis, never too dat ya just where ya are & dat's
where it's at. Malcolm Rebbenack, aka Dr. John
Last week's post opened with some dark song lyrics, reflecting the disgust I felt (and still do) toward the portion of our citizenry who are working to infect everyone's children with their bigotry and willful ignorance.
Thankfully, a few days ago, I came across this quote from one of my musical heroes. I'd seen it in the past, but it popped up just when I needed to see it. In his inimitable style, Dr. John expressed a message of love, inclusion, and acceptance of all. Thank you, Mac.
This week's pipe pic is a cool shot of painter, animator and inventor Myles Stenshoel.
Myles is holding two Perispectives, which are 360º photographs taken using a special tripod he invented. The photo comes to us courtesy of Stenshoel's son Peter, a good friend of Bizarro. Peter tells us that his family's home had Perispectives displayed as mobiles. A deep bow and a tip of the Bizarro porkpie to Peter for sharing the photo and memories of his father.
Let's review the week's cartoons for any signs of inventiveness.
A good salesperson knows what's important to their customers.
When I sketched the idea for this gag, I had the eye doctor saying something like, "Now try reading it using your other lump." Although "lump" is a funny-sounding word, the drawing works without dialog or a caption. It feels like an accomplishment to come up with a wordless comic, even if one doesn't immediately realize it.
The strip layout allowed for additional space between the doctor and patient.
The restaurant's tagline is Just Like Mom Used to Spew.
Another fad diet is disproved.
I haven't checked the data, but the number of potato-headed characters appearing in Bizarro may be approaching cowboy or caveman levels.
When we uploaded this one, our hardworking editors at King Features let me know that I'd incorrectly spelled the name as "Scottie." Thanks to Jennifer and Ealish at the Editorial office for sparing me embarrassment and preventing a nerd backlash.
To multiply or to divide, that is the question.
Sometimes I include a fake Secret Symbol count in the signature on April Fools' Day. This year I converted the actual count to dog symbols.
Beer Here!
I'm happy to share another of the many labels I designed for my good friends at Pittsburgh's East End Brewing Company.
This beer was named after a song on Captain Beefheart's 1972 LP, The Spotlight Kid, in part because it was a smoked lager, and if I recall correctly, the brewer working on it resembled the Captain in his younger years.
In keeping with that theme, the label drawing was an homage to Beefheart's groundbreaking Trout Mask Replica album.
The Trout Mask cover was designed and photographed by Cal Schenkel.
The Magic Band's killer version of the Willie Dixon/Bo Diddley number was produced by David Gates, who later gained fame as the leader of the (extremely) soft rock group Bread ("Baby I'm-a Want You.")
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
All your children are poor unfortunate victims
Of lies you believe A plague upon your ignorance That keeps the young from the truth they deserve Frank Zappa
The lyrics above are from "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" from the 1968 Mothers of Invention album, We're Only in It for the Money.
Two months after Money, Zappa's first solo release, Lumpy Gravy was released. I saved my school lunch money and bought both LPs after seeing an eye-catching psychedelic ad in Not Brand Echh, a Marvel comic book that parodied the superhero genre. The music and graphics on those two records simultaneously thrilled me and freaked me out.
That lyrical passage has stayed with me over the decades and is particularly resonant in the strange times we've been experiencing in
recent years.
I still listen to both albums regularly. I had them playing while working this week, prompted in part by my photo research for today's pipe pic, a promotional shot of Hugh "Lumpy" Brannum (1910-1987). Brannum was a composer, arranger, singer, actor and musician.
Between 1948 and 1950, he narrated a series of children's records as "Uncle Lumpy," accompanied by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians. Brannum hosted a local kids' TV show called Uncle Lumpy's Cabin in 1951, and in 1955 he began a thirty-year run on Captain Kangaroo playing Mr. Green Jeans, the role for which he was best known.
Lumpy's friendly mug served as the model for a character in one of the week's Bizarro panels, which we'll now review.
The green-skinned stranger goes by the nickname The Composite Kid, and travels as a line worker for Western Electric.
Even rodents like to feel fancy.
The farmer trying to pull a fast one was modeled after our friend Lumpy.
The pets worked out their differences, and now the parrot announces when the litter box needs changing.
Multiple VFO sightings were reported in the vicinity of the Seven Hills
The formerly evil queen went to medical school and developed an insomnia treatment for cartoon characters.
Beer Here!
Last week, Dan Piraro mentioned in his blog that I'd designed quite a few beer labels over the years, and several of you asked to see them, so I'll feature them here in upcoming weeks.
This one, from 2010, has an interesting history.
The brew was originally called Eye Opener, but the Federal agency that reviews alcohol labels rejected that name, saying it constituted a health claim. We changed the name to Coffee Porter, illustrated with a rebus that decodes as "eye opener." They saw through our ruse and bounced it back for another redesign.
We decided to separate the drawings, and offer the beer with two different labels, which the Feds finally approved.
If you visit Pittsburgh, I recommend checking out East End Brewing Company. They make excellent beers, and have two locations serving them, along with wines, soft drinks, and a pizza of the week. Their new taproom just opened in my neighborhood, which makes me very happy.
Bonus Track
Captain Kangaroo: "The Horse in Striped Pajamas" Golden Records single, 1959
The song is usually performed by a child and an adult, with the kid pointing out the animals, asking "Hey there Daddy, do you see..?" In Captain Kangaroo's version, the child's part is awkwardly played by Mr. Green Jeans. It's not easy to hear without cringing.
And, yes, the record is in my collection. But it's never played.
More Bizarro Stuff
If you've read this far, you might enjoy additional cartoon goodness from our alternate locations.
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
Work expands to fill the period of time available for its completion. Cyril Northcote Parkinson
Greetings, with a tentative sigh of relief from your cartoonist. The long-awaited installation of my new computer was completed early this week, with relative ease and less expense than anticipated. I was pleased to find that all of my peripheral devices worked with the latest operating system. I have a very good Mac expert who helped me out by transferring everything to the new machine from my external backup drive. It went smoothly, until we discovered that my daily work files had been moved to a deeply buried invisible folder. Searching was fruitless, until I tried opening a recent spreadsheet, and Excel detected the file's location.
I'm back in business, but lost a day of work, so in an attempt to upend Parkinson's Law, today's post will be briefer than usual.
Today's pipe pic comes to us from Bizarro reader Wally T, who snapped the photo at an estate liquidation shop in Key West, Florida.
If you hurry, this oddly dapper ape might still be available. Thanks for the shot, Wally!
Now, let's review the week's cartoon output.
This visitor arrived in a button-flying saucer.
Tuesday's gag features a character based on actor, comedian, and emcee John O'Hurley, who has been a frequent host of the AKC's National Dog Show. To the best of my knowledge, there is no "National Kennel Club."
I offer apologies to friends in the craft beer biz, with thanks for the inspiration. I have no doubt that at least one of these names has been used for an actual beer label, probably in hard to read, psychedelic lettering.
When visiting Canada years ago, I tried poutine, and thought it seemed a perfect product for America, but I realized that it was probably a bit too healthy for this market. Maybe it could succeed if it were topped with a layer of bacon.
We normally try to use as few words as possible in a gag, but sometimes a lengthier setup works better.
The strip turned out to be a pleasing composition in a different way than the panel. I think the wider view of the landscape, and the dark sky around the characters' heads reinforces the length of their hunt.
We ended the week with the third occurrence of red tartan fabric, and the first appearance of a most elegant logger.
That's the latest from our cartoon lab in Hollywood Gardens, PA. Drop by again next week for another round of comics and commentary. Who knows, there might even be more plaid flannel.
Bonus Track
Joni Mitchell with The Band: "Coyote" Recorded live in 1976 for the film The Last Waltz
A wonderful performance by a group of Canadian musicians.
This is a prime example of Joni Mitchell's amazing, otherworldly songwriting. I can happily watch the entire film any day of the year.
More Bizarro Stuff
Dan Piraro's Bizarro Blog The Sunday Bizarro page, with Dan's thoughts on the week's comics and living with beloved canine family members
Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter Delivered to your virtual inbox, with a link to the latest blog post, a clip from an
upcoming gag and a graphic artifact from my digital files
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
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. Charles Mingus
A Jazz Pickle thanked me last week for posting a comic on social media, because he wasn't able to read the version printed in his local newspaper. Newsprint is already a low-quality medium, and in this paper, the black & white panel was severely reduced, and squashed from a portrait-oriented rectangle into a 1 7/8" square. That's the size of a Triscuit cracker.
To see what that might look like, I resized a comic, and my heart sank when it came off the printer.
I couldn't help thinking about it as I worked on the comics this week. My approach has always been to remove nonessential elements in illustrations and cartoons. Since coming on board with Bizarro, I still try to work that way, but it's counterbalanced by a sprinkling of Secret Symbols along with my preference for drawing objects and animals in a (relatively) realistic style.
When comic panels are printed at less than two inches per side, with the aspect ratio significantly altered, some will be impossible to read on newsprint, no matter how simple the drawing may be.
I won't alter my work to adjust for tiny reproduction, and will hope for the best, while encouraging readers to find the comics online if they have trouble reading them in print.
King Features has a reasonably priced subscription plan for their Comics Kingdom site, which includes access to all of their comics, including archives going back for decades.
Cartoonists can't control how newspapers print the comics, so it's best for each of us to continue to make art the way we see fit.
Our pipe pic for today is a Zippy the Pinhead comic, originally published on this date in 2015.
Zippy's creator, Bill Griffith has been one of my heroes since the 1970s. In my youth, I spent a lot of time (and money) in record stores, many of which also carried underground comix, where I discovered Bill's work. His art and writing flipped my wig and rewired my brain from the get-go.
In the years that followed, Bill and I became pen pals and eventually friends and colleagues, but he remains above all an inspiration and role model. I'm eagerly awaiting publication of Three Rocks, Bill's upcoming graphic biography of Ernie Bushmiller.
Your cartoonist, in the presence of greatness back in 2018.
Although he's been a huge influence, Bill Griffith bears no responsibility or blame for my comics, which we'll now review.
We at Bizarro Studios are well aware that "never mind" is properly spelled as two separate words. We chose to spell it as a single word in this panel to echo the raven's repeated "nevermore" in Poe's famous verse.
The employee's not wrong. His annual performance reviews do acknowledge incremental improvement.
As a child, I tried to clear an Etch-a-Sketch screen many times. Who knew I was actually working toward enlightenment?
For the strip, I reversed the characters and background. The word balloon and caption box had to be on the same side of the layout, to leave room for the art. It at least gives newspaper readers a fighting chance at getting the joke.
Surprisingly, I received only one online complaint from someone who didn't know how to find the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
This panel might seem applicable to a recent high profile trial in South Carolina, but that's pure coincidence. It was inspired by the aphorism "A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client."
A loyal Bizarro reader once referred to the miscellaneous topics I cover in my blog and newsletter as "triviata," and that invented word stuck with me. I imagined it as the title of an opera staged in Bizarroville, and came up with this gag. I tip my favorite fedora to Ralph H. for the seed of this gag.
Just for cynical laughs, here's a comparison of the squashed version of this panel and the full-sized file:
It's possible that the text suffers even more than the art.
One should pursue a career that incorporates their passion.
That's the latest output from the Little Shop of Humor here in Hollywood Gardens, PA. Be sure to visit us again next week for more comics, commentary and maybe a bit of triviata.
Bonus Track
The Kirby Stone Four: "Raven" Cadence Records single (1957)
The Kirby Stone Four recorded just one album for the Cadence label (Man, I Flipped... When I Heard the Kirby Stone Four), but it's their best.
Their brilliant, Poe-inspired faux beatnik number did not appear on the LP.
This video was digitized from the original vinyl here at Bizarro Studios North.
Other Bizarro Locations
Dan Piraro's Bizarro Blog Dan's latest Sunday Bizarro page, and an embarrassing episode from the past
Wayno's Bizarro Newsletter A weekly email linking you to the latest blog post, plus a peek at an upcoming gag and an illustration or design from my previous life
