Happy Saturday, friends of Bizarro.
This week’s blog post is now available.
The drawing board recently hosted another odd assortment of characters, including aliens, fashionistas, a country music star, laboratory equipment, and farm animals.
Looking Ahead & Looking Back
I didn’t think of this when I drew it, but perhaps our diner has been served a glass of slop.
Here’s a second look into the future. After I had completed the week’s cartoons and sent them off, Dan and I agreed that this character should be dressed differently, so I revamped his outfit.
When the gag is published in August and I write that week’s blog, the revision will make sense.
Our throwback art is part of a back cover I did for the comic book Duplex Planet Illustrated in 1995. The art featured vintage postcards with Duplex Planet regulars added. I painted the figures on vellum and pasted them onto the postcards. I specified the dialog for each image, and the publisher added the word balloons.
Here’s the full cover image:
My History with the Grateful Dead
Monday’s Bizarro made a genetic joke about the Grateful Dead (without mentioning that the clones would have all of their fingers fully intact.)
The music of the Dead never appealed to me, but they’ve crossed my drawing board a few times over the years.
The first was in 1991 when I adapted the lyrics of their song “Tennessee Jed” for a series called Grateful Dead Comix. I blogged about this project and shared scans of my eight-page comic.
As a contributor, I was also entitled to free admission to a Dead concert at an amphitheater about thirty miles from my home. I invited a fellow cartoonist, and on our way to the show, we encountered a traffic jam twenty miles from the concert location. Fortunately, we were near an exit ramp, and bailed on what we expected would be an unpleasant or at least overcrowded experience, with no real guarantee that we’d be admitted.
In the early 2000s, I worked on a multi-year project for Rhino Records, drawing ink portraits of musicians and other recording artists. I have no idea who most of the members are. I know that’s Garcia in the upper left.
My colleague Hilary Price invited me to be the guest cartoonist on her award-winning strip Rhymes With Orange for a week in 2012, and I recast the Grateful Dead as snowfolk.
Despite my lack of interest in the band’s music, I have to admire their longevity and their fans’ dedication. Plus, they’ve contributed to my income over the years.
That’s the newsletter for this week. Thank you for subscribing and for reading the comics
Your questions, comments, and pipe pics are always welcome.
Best wishes from your cartoonist,
Wayno
You used one of my favorite quotes about puns in your blog, and while I also often quote Oscar Levant in response to my groaners, this more recent one has a little more erudition:
"Wit and puns aren't just decor in the mind; they're essential signs that the mind knows it's on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program." - Adam Gopnik