Number, Please
Art from the dial-up age and funky brass sounds.
Your cartoon cowpoke has lassoed a bucking bloggeroo for your entertainment, and it’s waiting over at the W-Circle-R Ranch.
This week, the old drawing board played host to the smartphone’s great-grandpa, chickens, and superheroes. We also set gags in a furniture store, in rural England, and at a spelling bee.
Looking Ahead & Looking Back
I enjoy drawing ancient technology.
This much older tech is featured in another cartoon from the latest batch.
Today’s historical image is a 1980 ad from Shake & Pop!, a music zine I edited and published along with my good pal Jim, who owned one of Pittsburgh’s coolest record stores. (Note the ghostly image of Sid Vicious showing through from the reverse side of the ad page.)
I stole the idea for the illustration from Art Spiegelman’s 1976 classic “Nervous Rex: The Malpractice Suite," which used cutout panels from the Rex Morgan, MD comic strip. It wouldn’t be the last time I copied his technique.
Shake & Pop! was part of my self-education in graphics. I did the layout using rubdown type, black graphics tape, and crappy marking pens, and I did the “typesetting” with a manual typewriter. Here are a few of my poorly-written LP reviews from the same issue as the ad.
Oh, yes. I used a lot of Zip-A-Tone shading film, as well as photo collages.
Cartoon Talk Follow-Up
During my recent PenciltoPencil talk, one of the hosts briefly mentioned being disappointed when a bag of remaindered comic books included a copy of Sad Sack. I always enjoyed that comic’s precise, clean art style. I had almost forgotten that I own an original page of Sad Sack art.
I’m not expert enough to know which artist did this page, though I believe it was Fred Rhoads. I love the drawings and the fact that it’s a music gag.
This Week in Bizarro History
Laffs from the Past
I imagined that Pinocchio’s worst nightmare might be waking up as a creature that eats wood. I’ve done a few gags based on Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but I haven’t tackled The Trial or In the Penal Colony. Anything can happen in the future.
Creating a wordless gag is always satisfying, and this surreal 2023 panel is one of my favorites. I drew it around when we were renovating a bathroom, and the glass door inspired a tiny window washer dangling from a cable.
Additional Bonus Track
I mentioned seeing the Hot 8 Brass Band this week and how much I enjoyed their funkified cover of Joy Division’s 1980 single, “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” I was happy to find this live version, which, I believe, features their original tuba player and founding band member, Bennie Pete, who died in 2021.
That’s the newsletter for this week, my friends. Thank you for your support, readership, pipe pics, comments, and questions. We do it all for you.
With best wishes from your cartoonist,
Wayno
In the Sunday comics section of our local newspaper (the Orlando Sentinel) on 2/23/25, Dave Blazek had an homage to you in his Loose Parts comic. Two robots are talking inside a bar, and the window has the name of the establishment: Wayno's (written in reverse, of course, so that people outside the bar can read it).
You didn't put any letters on the rotary phone dial. Maybe not enough room?