I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic, and this is my weekly blog post. The large Sunday comic above is mine, as are all of the comments below.
Since January 2018, the Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics have been written and drawn by my comics partner, Wayno. They follow this commentary. For more fun, check out Wayno’s weekly blog post.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to the Secret Symbols in my Sunday comic.
Hola, Jazz Pickles. Nice of you to stop by.
The Oyl and I visited a part of the US last week that we truly love. They call it the Great Northwest, and the sobriquet is well deserved. It’s not just a “pretty good” Northwest; it’s truly great.
We were in Portland, Oregon, visiting loved ones, and they weren’t the only things we loved about the trip. The city is creative and fun, and the surrounding forests, mountains, rivers, and wildlife are intoxicatingly beautiful. The energy of all that abundant life is almost overwhelming, at least to people like O2 and me, who are ever aware of the living miracle of this planet. There’s no place within thousands of light-years that we’d rather live.
Yes, I’m getting all poetically mushy and effusively romantic about trees, mushrooms, and critters, but to my mind, you just can’t throw enough saccharine love at a place like that. Check it out…
Moss grows on everything. Every surface of every object is covered with life. I love it.
That tiny person in the photo on the left is Olive Oyl, and the two characters under that big rock are her and my daughter, Killian. (We did not knock those trees down. They were like that when we arrived.)
The mushrooms on the left are not psychedelic, but they are still magical to my mind. I was enchuckled by the bumper sticker on the right, but I did not buy it because everything in the US is far too expensive now, thanks to a certain greedy felo.
On the left, we have O2, me, and my Killian in front of the very big Multnomah Falls (620 feet, 189 meters), pictured at right. The tiny speck on that bridge is a full-grown adult human.
Olive and I almost moved to Portland in 2016, but then something unsavory happened in US politics, and we chose Mexico instead. We’ve been very happy here, but we still love Portland and are thankful we have a good reason to visit regularly.
IMPORTANT OTHER THING:
My daughter, shown in the final photo with Olive Oyl and me, is brilliant, creative, ethical, responsible, competent, and looking for a certain kind of job. If you can help, I’d be big-time grateful! Here’s her pitch:
Hi! I'm Killian, an editor and UX writer/content designer with twenty years in the content realm. My background pairs extensive editing and proofreading with UX content design at companies like Toyota and Pitch, where I specialized in making complex information clear, consistent, and useful. I help teams make content cohesive across a product or organization, and I build the style documentation that keeps it that way. I’m also growing my UX research skills, so I can ground content decisions in how people actually use a product.
I’d love to connect with teams that need someone who can bring both an editorial eye and a user-centered perspective to their work. I’m looking for my next role in content design or UX writing, part-time or full-time, ideally remote or Portland-based. If you know of a fit, I’d love to hear from you: kpiraro@gmail.com • portfolio • LinkedIn
Time to toss this love-fest over to Wayno and his Bizarro comics from the week…
Plus, he has the disgusting habit of pooping while he flies.
Wayno’s cartoons about clowns fitting into tiny spaces make me wonder if there are any claustrophobic clowns.
If you’ve ever tried to fold seaweed into animal shapes, you know how hard it can be.
From my perspective, there are few things scarier than decorating your house in such a way as to invite strange children to demand candy from you.
Those coffees should speed the game up a bit.
I particularly like Wayno’s version of the Inverted Bird in this one.
We’re done here. Please consider helping us keep this stuff going via the links below, now that the newspaper industry is a shadow of its former self. And please hire my daughter for a job she’ll love at a salary that makes her eyes pop, and make her has-been old dad look good. Thanks, Jazz Pickles!
The Naked Cartoonist…My every-other-week creative-writing subscription service.
Limited edition, signed & numbered prints of BIZARRO CARTOONS, and some ORIGINALS!
Bizarro TIP JAR …One-time or repeating. Your choice!
WAYNO’S TIP JAR …One-time or repeating. Your choice!
My (free) graphic novel in progress, PEYOTE COWBOY.
Watch my PITCH VIDEO and become a supporter of Peyote Cowboy here.
Super fun BIZARRO SWAG from ComicsKingdom, including women’s V-neck styles! (IF ORDERING FROM CANADA or anywhere outside the US, CHECK SHIPPING COSTS CAREFULLY!)