Dan Piraro's Blog, page 7

Not Really Back

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long, I've been performing in Tulsa and visiting family. I'm catching up on deadlines today but will back tomorrow blogging like a mofo. Come back and have an ogle!

Many Cartoons

Today's whopper-sized Bizarro post is brought to you by Children As Food.

Lots to take care of today, I've fallen behind on posting cartoons. As I've mentioned within these electronic walls enough times to cause you to cough up your spleen, I have some shows in Tulsa later this week. This means I must get five days ahead on deadlines which takes 15 days of working double time. I have no idea why it works out that way, but that's cartoon math for you. Just when you think you've solved the equation, a safe falls on your head.

If you are in the Tulsa area, come to one or both of my shows this week, please. You won't regret it. I won't let you. If I see you shuffling off after the show with a look of regret on your face, I'll hit you with my dad's car.

Two to choose from:
Thursday, Nov 18, Philbrook Museum, 6pm-7:30, I'll be discussing my cartoon career, fine art, comedy shows, and playing a few original songs. Q & A to follow. Free with admission to museum.

Friday, Nov 19, Tulsa Elks Lodge, 8pm, a full-on comedy show with cartoons, stand-up, audience participation, onstage drawing, six original songs with backup musicians. $10, goes to charity.

Not sure if I'll be able to post again this week, but I'll try to do it once before I leave. I'd love to be do a post about the Great Garfield Veteran's Day Scandal of 2010, for instance, and talk about how that same thing has happened to me on a couple of occasions. I'll do it if I have time, for sure.

Back to the humor dungeon. Hope to see you in Tulsa.

Sunday Punnies # 10

(For a larger view of this comic, click on the ostrich's beak)

Bizarro is brought to you today by Unexpected Crime Waves.

If you are reading today's blog, there is a decent chance you read the fine print in my Sunday Punnies #10 cartoon that published today. Welcome! If you can hear the sound of my voice, adjust your computer and examine your meds. I'm not talking.

Here are three puns that were generously contributed by three different readers, whose names appear in microscopic print at the bottom of each panel of the triptych. Of course, they didn't do all the work. I figured out brilliant ways to portray them graphically or tweak them with additional dialogue, and I auditioned the thousands of actors it took to find the cast that would best represent the hilarity intended by M. Kaskel, Bill G. and Witte.

If you've got an idea for a pun, leave it in the comments section of any post on my blog. I don't publish the pun suggestions, so you'll never see it appear here, but rest assured that I am reading and considering each one. Don't forget to leave me an email address if you'd like to be notified of the date your pun will appear in Bizarro (should I choose it) and what name you'd like to appear on the panel. First or last and an initial is the most I can use, no full names allowed.

IMPORTANT: You'll receive no payment or compensation for participating. All you get is the glory and giggles of seeing your submission in print.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR: Original, unexpected puns. Please don't send things you've heard or read elsewhere.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: If you incur an injury while typing a pun to submit to Bizarro, it isn't my fault and I'm not even going to dignify your lawyer's accusations with a response. You must be 18 to vote, but you can submit a pun to me at any age. I really don't care. You need not be present to win, because you're not really winning anything and, after all, who among us is truly "present"? I mean besides Oprah.

Thanks so much! Hey, as long as you're here, click around on some of the other posts and see if you like what I'm doing. Don't miss the blue links, they're funny pictures!

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Big News

Oprah Invites Hundreds Of Lucky Fans To Be Buried With Her In Massive Tomb

See This Show

My good friend and comedy genius from another dimension, Will Franken, is doing another one-man show at The Purple Onion again soon. See it if you can, he is a rare performer without equal. Below are Will's own words:

Will Franken in "I'll Be Your Neck"
The Purple Onion
140 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco
Saturday, November 20th
(2 shows; 8pm and 10pm)
$20

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/134380

Get your tickets now!

"I'll Be Your Neck" is the story of one's man pursuit to hold a woman's head because she's too beautiful to use her own neck.

It's also the story of many other things as well. There's an 8-year old black girl narrating Spike Lee's remake of "Silence of the Lambs" (momma talk about the bad man sometimes. He wanted momma to put lotion on her skin. But momma didn't want to. . .)

It's the story of a jealous husband who sulks alone in his bedroom while Will laughs it up downstairs with the wife. Based on true events, Will plays the parts of the husband, the wife, and himself. "Honey, can I talk to you in the bedroom real quick? I can't find my shoehorn! Will, how is the comedy going? Well, it certainly sounds like my wife is a huge fan! I can hear her laughing all the way upstairs in the bedroom where her and I sleep as husband and wife! Honey, can you please help me find the shoehorn?"

It's the story of an inverse world where the white trash guys from Fresno are running tech support for Indians who don't know anything about computers.

It's the story of the big screen adaptation of "Handbags With Mary Beth On QVC" featuring Christopher Walken as Mary Beth, Crispin Glover as Joyce (his co-host), and Stephen Hawking as Caller #7.

It's the story of how a man mistook a cowlick for a brain tumor and how the doctor still expects him to pay for an over-the-counter hair gel.

It's the story, all right.

Come see this story and you'll have plenty of stories to tell.

I'm Will Franken. And this is my story.

Wm.

(willfranken.com)

Homeward and Bound

Bizarro is brought to you today by Ageless Heroism.

I'm busy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs this week as I try to get ahead on deadlines for my big trip next week to the land of milk and honey, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Next week, on Thursday and Friday, I'm doing a couple of events in my hometown as well as speaking to a few classes of art students at my old high school, visiting family and old friends, and breaking into pharmacies in the middle of the night. I've found it's even cheaper than ordering drugs from Canada.

It's a fun visit, but can be emotionally taxing. My family is great, no problems there (except for my brother's wife who drinks constantly and inevitably pulls me into a closet at my parent's house and tries to make out with me) but seeing how the old stomping grounds and its inhabitants have changed is a challenge.

"Oh look, that's where the Pagoda Palace used to be, where I took my prom date for an exotic Chinese dinner. Now it's 1/85 of a parking lot for Walmart."

"Oh, look, there is a girl I dated in high school, now she's a greeter at Walmart, a born-again Christian and has 16 children and counting."

"And who's that guy sitting in the front row of my talk at the museum? He looks a little like the father of Kurt, a kid I rode bikes with in junior high school. Oh, that's actually him – do I look that much like my dad did in 1971? I remember Kurt cheating off my paper in math class because he wasn't very smart. Right after college, he came up with some Internet thing, sold it for millions and hasn't worked in 29 years. Will you help me kill him?"

But the good outweighs the bad and I'm really looking forward to it. The breaking news this week is that my Dad, Fred Piraro, is going to be opening for me at the Elk's Lodge show. He'll be warming up the crowd with a few of his comedy stylings, then introducing me. He's done this kind of thing for me before and he's very good at it. He doesn't have any formal experience as a stand-up comic, but if you get a couple drinks into most old Sicilian guys, they pretty much become the life of any party. Or strangle someone with a piano wire. (We're keeping him away from the piano that night.)

Hope to see you there.

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My Marathon

Here are a couple of pictures of me running the NYC Marathon yesterday. It passes by about a block from my house and every year I see all those people jogging past hour after hour and listen to the bumper-to-bumper detoured traffic on my street honking and wonder, "what's the big deal with that thing, huh?"

So this year I decided to compete. I didn't win, but as anyone who runs in this kind of event can tell you, it's not about winning, it's about the personal challenge. And it was very challenging to get out of bed that early on a Sunday.
I hope these pictures will help you to admire me and maybe inspire yourself to get out of bed, too.

Sexy Children Dogs

Bizarro is brought to you today by Contraceptive Fashion.

People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive issue comes out on November 17th and if they don't pick me this year, I say SCREW THEM. I have all of the qualifications they list: I'm alive and I'm sexy. (Says CHNW) So what is the holdup?

If they pick some damn vampire actor again, I'm going to the deli across the street from my apartment and turning over the magazine rack. Seriously.

On to more pleasant topics, here is a cartoon about witches who eat children. So she's heading out to pick up lunch with an empty stroller. Get it? What's funnier than eating children?
(Note to children reading this blog: Ask your parents if they have updated the anti-witch security devices in your home. Firefighters recommend changing the batteries on January 1st each year.)

Finally, from the archival vault (trash bags in my basement) comes this ancient Sunday comic from October of 1998. This was before I started coloring on computer, hence the colour de crapola, as they say in French. You can click on it to achieve biggerness, which will enable you to read it more good.














Dogs are so cute. By the way, where can I get one of these for my very own?


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The Hole Thing

A fine website answering to the name "The Comics Journal," has published a three-part interview of myself. Against my innate sense of modesty and with great shame, I provide you here below with links to the whole shebang. WARNING: This interview is NOT appropriate for people not able to read.
Part 1 of 3

Part 2

Part 3



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Bird Parts

Bizarro is brought to you today by Talent!

America's Got Talons is one of my favorite gags in a long time. Like my great aunt Wynona, it isn't deep, but it makes me laugh. And once again, I didn't write it, though I wish I had. This one comes from my good friend and fellow cartoonist/stand-up comic, Michael Capozzola. He's as big a fan of these competition reality shows as I am. That is to say, he'd rather die than have to watch one. That has nothing to do with this cartoon, but I just wanted to hammer another nail into that post. (strange metaphor, probably won't every use it again)

The next item on today's menu is the duck gag. I've spent some time on a shrink's couch (only figuratively, I've never seen an actual psychiatrist, just psychologists, and I've never had one that wanted me to lie down, somewhat to my disappointment) and none of them have been ducks. But if they were, I imagine they might say something like this and I would be surprised and maybe giggle a bit. Hence, a cartoon. I hope you like it and if you didn't, please don't leave a mean comment on this post because my therapist says I'm fragile right now.

Speaking of hammering more nails in an already victimized post, (I broke my own promise not to use that metaphor again, must mention this to my therapist) if you live in Oklahoma or know anyone who does, please come to (or have them go to) one or both of my performances in Tulsa in a couple of weeks. Boy, it's going to be fun. If you don't know what I'm talking about see these two posts: Thursday, Nov 18, and Friday, Nov 19. The shows are different, so see them both!


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