I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic. Each week, I post my Sunday Bizarro comic, a short essay, and then the past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics 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.

Bienvenidos, Jazz Pickles. 

It’s been a rough week for justice, but I know you didn’t come here to read about that, so I won’t go into it. 

Wayno and I both felt gut-punched this week and it sapped our energy for life and creativity for a while. If you experienced something similar, the following quote from Toni Morrison may help.

She wrote it in 2004, a month after George W. Bush won re-election.

“I am staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls to wish me happy holidays. He asks, “How are you?” And instead of “Oh, fine — and you?”, I blurt out the truth: “Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I’ve begun. I’ve never felt this way before, but the election…” I am about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting: “No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”

“I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds; who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, pilloried. And those who were executed.”

"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

“I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”

—Toni Morrison

With that inspiration in mind, we’ll keep calm and carry on with Wayno’s Bizarro cartoons for the week…

If Dostoevsky had been into skin care.

I gotta wonder what that doctor is smokin’.

The third Secret Symbol in this one is as difficult as chasing down her husbands birth certificates would be.

The rest of the family calls his garage the Mini Walmart.

Contractors! Am I right?

Kevin is nothing a handkerchief soaked in ether wouldn’t take care of.

Lastly: BIZARRO 2025 CALENDARS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

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Other Bizarro products from King Features here.

https://shop.comicskingdom.com/collections/bizarro-collection

Thanks for your attention, Jazz Pickles. Take care of yourselves and keep your focus. Peaks and valleys are a natural part of existence.

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