Making the Cartoon Sausage
The usual materiel plus a rickety process video
Happy Winter Solstice to all friends of Bizarro.
Today’s blog entry is a bit shorter than usual. It’s been a busy week here. Click on my community’s Xmas tree (below) for the post.
The protagonists in my latest batch of cartoons included pastries, Harry Houdini, a religious figure, comic book heroes, and King Arthur.
Looking Ahead & Looking Back
This scene in a barnyard beauty salon will appear in the New Year.
Today’s archival work is either from 1978 or 1983. It was a template I made for my friend Jim’s record store. Jim lettered the vacation notice. The art is relatively primitive, so let’s say it was done in 1978. Interestingly, there’s a pipe-smoking character in the upper right corner.
My friend Mark of the Hoffman Brothers band found this relic inside a Squeeze LP he undoubtedly bought from Jim.
Sketchbook Stuff
Here’s a pencil and marker morning warmup sketch from 2012.
Building a Bizarro Comic
Speaking of primitive efforts, here’s a low-tech video showing how a Bizarro panel evolves from a scribbly sketch to a finished panel. I layered several images in Photoshop and stepped through them with my computer’s video screen capture turned on. The narration, recorded as I manipulated the file, is at a relatively low volume, so you might need to turn it up when viewing the video.
It was my first attempt at something like this, so I welcome your comments and ask you to grade me on a curve.
Keep those pipe pics, questions, comments, and t-shirt modeling photos coming in! I’m always open to answering questions in the newsletter, so please send them along, whatever you may be curious about.
Thanks, as always, for your readership and support.
Best wishes from your cartoonist,
Wayno
The pipe-smoking character is reminiscent of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Given that the first Church of the SubGenius pamphlet was in 1979, this would indicate that Dobbs was in telepathic contact with you before the church's formation. That most likely makes you a minor prophet. Maybe the D Minor prophet?
Regardless, best wishes for abundant Slack in 2025. We'll all be needing it given what the year has in store for us.
Just an FYI. The video wasn't available in the basic email I received, but worked fine in the Substack App on Android. Interesting to see the creative process, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Rob