Amok Running
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, then a short essay, then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics written and drawn by my partner, Wayno whose weekly blog post can be seen here. I highly recommend it.
Here’s the ANSWER KEY to this week’s Sunday comic, above.
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Yokoso, Jazz Pickles. That’s “welcome” in Japanese for no reason other than to diversify the languages with which I greet my readers. I’ve used English and Spanish before but it seemed high time to spread the love.
My regular readers know that I enjoy complex images. Drawing a scene from scratch like the one of the office, above, is a lot of work, presents a great many challenges, and represents a love/hate relationship for me because it takes so much more time and effort than would a simpler image. But I often persist because the final result is fun to explore and gives me lots of places to more inconspicuously hide our usual icons, the Bizarro Secret Symbols. This image contains all thirteen of them (with “O2” but not Olive Oyl’s image.) Pat yourself on the back or any other place you enjoy patting if you can find all of them without help from the answer key, linked above. Then give yourself 25 bonus points.
I drew the scene above from a combination of memory and imagination but I have not worked in or even visited an office like the one above for decades. I thank all of the gods ever envisioned or described by mankind for that fact but it means this scene is likely old-fashioned and anachronistic in ways I am completely unaware of. Oh well.
The last job I held that had a dress code was before the invention of “Casual Friday.” It was as an artist in the in-house advertising department of Neiman Marcus in Dallas back in 1981. It was my first assignment in the world of commercial art and my first job that was not simply minimum-wage grunt work, though it paid not much more. I was in my early twenties then and full of myself. I’ve since left my twenties behind but perhaps not the other thing mentioned in that sentence.
When I joined that crew of art directors, designers, artists, and paste-up people, we were allowed to wear pretty much whatever we wanted other than beachwear. But then somebody in the executive offices a floor above got the idea to impose more formal attire: women had to wear dresses, and men had to wear trousers, button-down shirts, and neckties. Since we were never seen by clients or the public, I could not find a reason to decree this other than a desire to impose a kind of authoritarian rule over us “creatives.” Being in my early twenties, I was predictably concerned with looking cool and desirable at all moments, and I could not justify being made to dress like an accountant—we were “creatives,” after all, not accountants who are, in fact, jailed for being too creative. WTF, man?
Since a copy of these Hitlerian sartorial rules was distributed to each of us, I decided to abide by the letter of the law and not the intent. The next day, I reported for duty wearing three of the biggest, fattest, loudest ties I could find at Goodwill, tied around my neck in one, huge half-Windsor knot the approximate size of a grapefruit. After all, the rules had said, “male employees shall wear button-down shirts, ties, and trousers.” I completed the outfit with a hideously-patterned shirt from the 70s that clashed with all three ties, as well as two pairs of resale-shop trousers that were a good 10 inches shorter than acceptable for the era and perhaps eight inches larger in the waist than needed. They seemed to have belonged to an obese man around five feet tall.
I got some guffaws and a smattering of applause from my fellow employees but the executives upstairs were less impressed with my interpretation. I argued that I was only exercising the creative skills for which I’d been hired but it didn’t convince them. Surprisingly, however, they did not forbid me from dressing that way, they just turned a blind eye and waited for me to get tired of it, which happened in about a week as I recall. (They must have known I’d need to look cool and desirable again sooner than later.) A week after that, they dropped the dress code entirely as a result of the many complaints from my coworkers. I tried to donate the clothing back to Goodwill and they wouldn’t even accept them, which seemed like a final triumph of sorts. All’s well that ends well, as they say.
Regardless of how you’re dressed—or not—follow me now to Bizarro Studios North to peruse the week’s Bizarro cartoons created by my able partner, Wayno…
If you happened to miss school the day they covered pool shark history, you may not be aware that in a movie called The Hustler, an actor called Jackie Gleason played a pool shark called Minnesota Fats. Wayno has more to say about this in his blog post today.
I don’t know if it is anything to be concerned about but all of my auto-correct programs strongly prefer the word “gambling” to “gamboling.” Might be time for an intervention.
The thing I worry about with talking bedsheet ghosts is how good their memory is. I can imagine a scenario in which a bedsheet ghost haunts you by recounting some of your most embarrassing sexcapades or that time you dreamed you finally found a bathroom after a desperate search only to awaken and realize no, you hadn’t.
My favorite TV series right now is Barry, on HBO. I am in awe of it. And one of my favorite things about that show is how it skewers the behind-the-scenes workings of Hollywood. So true, so funny.
Maybe this is how recently-deceased comedian Gallagher and his brother got started. They looked just alike and they both toured individually as “Gallagher.” If you saw Gallagher live, there’s no telling which one it was. I’m not saying it matters, I’m just saying it happened.
And you can keep a pet alligator without the neighbors complaining.
Thus ends today’s blog vomit, Jazz Pickles. Thanks for holding my forehead while I retched. If you enjoy what we’re doing here and that we don’t charge you or subject you to pop-up ads or clickbait, please consider helping us keep it this way via the links below. Our cheeks will go cherubic when we hear of your generosity.
Until next time, may you survive the “cool and desirable” years with enough dignity to enjoy the rest.
BIZARRO SHOP Fun and cheap!
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…Signed, numbered, limited edition prints and original Bizarro panels