What Do You Stand For?
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic, and this is my weekly blog post. The large Sunday Bizarro comic above is mine, as are the comments below. The past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics that follow were written and drawn by my partner Wayno, whose weekly blog post I highly recommend.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
Thanks for climbing out of your jars to peek at my weekly post, Jazz Pickles.
This week’s Sunday comic above harkens back to my days as a stand-up comedian. Around the turn of the millennium, I created a one-man show about my life as a cartoonist and performed it off and on in lots of cities from 2002 to around 2010.
I called it the Bizarro Baloney Show, and it had home-made sets, costumes, props, and puppets, and incorporated projected images and videos, as well as original songs and a few audience participation bits.
My dog puppets, Bruno and Steve
It was super fun, despite requiring a tremendous amount of time and effort. While touring (without roadies or a manager), I was also keeping up with my syndication commitments by writing and drawing seven new cartoons each week. It was often overwhelming.
My teenage daughters sometimes traveled with me and helped out with travel, set-up, and tech, and one of them sometimes appeared onstage with me playing violin to my comedy songs and joining me for the musical finale (below).
I still often wonder how I managed it all. The mysterious powers of youth may have had something to do with it. Despite the exhaustion, those shows are some of my most cherished career memories.
My eldest daughter and I dancing through the musical finale
In 2004, when “W” was running for reelection, I went on tour with three other stand-up comics in a show we called Bizarro’s Politicomedy-a-Go-Go. It was a more traditional stand-up comedy show than my multi-media one-man show. We had a ball, even though we did not convince the country to toss “W” out on his ass. I cherish those memories, too.
I’ve loosely stayed in touch with those guys, but I hadn’t seen them in decades until one of them moved to my town a few weeks ago and rented a house in our neighborhood. We’ve had a terrific time reminiscing and shared a few laughs over the fact that odious politics has brought us together once again. Like most educated people, he recognizes fascism when he sees it.
My fellow comedians, Jeff Kreisler, Brian Malow, Michael Capozzola, and my unrecognizable, younger self. If someone had told us that Brian and I would one day be neighbors in Mexico, we never would’ve believed it.
My talented partner in comics, Wayno, has a speaking performance in Pittsburgh this coming week, which you should catch if you’re in the area. Before you run off to read that, let’s have a look at Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons for the week!
Obviously, this was not the ferrous wheeler’s day off.
The invitations to his orgies were beautifully crafted.
There’s a reason Wayno only drew this guy from the waist up.
I was born a few months before Alaska became a state. It’s a dubious distinction to be older than Alaska.
Unfortunately, these guys can never tell how loudly they’re playing.
I enjoyed Cub Scouts, but Boy Scouts was too militaristic for my taste.
Our time is up for today, Jazz Pickles. If you enjoy these little comedy therapy sessions, we hope you’ll thank us via one or more of the links below. We’ll appreciate your support by keeping these cartoons free of charge and without annoying ads as long as we can.
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Bizarro TIP JAR One-time or repeating. Your choice!
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Watch my pitch video and become a supporter of Peyote Cowboy here.
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