Product Description: What goes on in the head of Dan Piraro-stand-up comedian, fine artist, animal rights activist, and creator of the award-winning syndicated comic strip Bizarro? This wildly inventive compendium of cartoons, never-before-seen sketches, photographs, and paintings-along with Piraro's own hilarious and thought-provoking insights into his life and the world at large-takes readers inside the mind of the mad genius with a nationwide following. Much more than just a collection of cartoons, this is the first comprehensive book incorporating all of Piraro's work in a variety of media, interwoven with autobiographical passages that shed light on the evolution of the artist's left-leaning worldview. It's a must-have for Bizarro fans and a terrific introduction for the uninitiated.
Fights Alzheimer's Nine Ways One of the few good reasons to spend retirement years in America is the dependable presence of at least one laugh in your morning newspaper, aside from those sardonic guffaws you suppress with a sob when you look at the front page. Now, none of you techno-whippersnappers had better tell me that the comics are available on-line anywhere I wander, anywhere I roam, cuz looking at Bizarro on a computer screen is about as gratifying as staring at a photo of a snifter of cognac. It's the smell of the newsprint and the satisfaction of snatching the pertinent image from your lovey at her sudoku. Yes sir, that's livin'! Gets you all stirred up for tooling around Sun City in your golf cart.
Dan Piraro has been amassing a comprehensive dossier of my own particular world-view for many years, one frame at a time, but I've been abroad enough to have missed any number of his sharpest insights. But with this here book in my suitcase, I can face moving to "The Sequoias" with equanimity. What name for an assisted living facilty, eh? The Sequoias. Piraro would appreciate it.
Very funney and very intolerant Bizzaro is one of the best comic strips I have ever seen. Even on the all too numerous occasions when it is clear that my political etc. views are diametrically opposite to Mr. Piraro's I find his comic strips funny and very clever. I even have a reproduction of one his 'strips framed and hanging on a wall in my house. This collection is one of the funniest comic strip collections I have seen and it is also published in a very high quality (for a paperback) format- it is *not* your typical flimsily bound and poorly printed paperback collection. I also like the fact that he reveals where his ideas come from. This brings me to my second point: it's one thing to include your political and religious beliefs in your book. These illuminate the origin of many of his ideas, but it's another to have them constantly shoved down your throat in a very childish fashion. He writes with the style of an angry and idealistic high school student with no thought that anyone else with very differing views could have valid ideas or - gasp- could even be correct. It get's tiring to be constantly told that anyone with opposing views is "whacked out", to use a common phrase of his. He replaces his idealized wishful thinking for facts, and it gets annoying. Here's one example: he writes about how he admires the native American Indians for living in harmony with nature. Clearly he has not read much on this matter because, I am sorry to inform this vegan, it is pretty much accepted by anthropologists and other scientists involved that "native" Americans wiped out the pleistocene megafauna, just like the "native" New Zealanders pretty much wiped out thier megafauna. I point this out because I grew tired of his constant know-it-all attitude, and I am sure other readers will as well. I only write this because I think even this very personal book goes way overboard for a comic book collection in his attacks on people whose views he dislikes and I expect a little more restraint more from an adult author- even a cartoonist with a poor formal educational background. Still in all, I would highly recommend this book to any fan of the daily comics and plan on buying his new hardcover collection upon it's release.
sometimes brilliant, but often arrogant. Dan Piraro is undeniably one of today's most talented newspaper cartoonists, and there's much to enjoy in this overview, if you can get past the tiresome, unrelenting narcissism and vegan proselytizing. More art (there's room on the pages) and less smug self-righteousness would've served this book better (and I AGREE with most of Piraro's politics).
Delightful This book provides insight into Dan Piraro, the most consistently humorous cartoonist of our day. Buy this book!
Great illustrations, great humor, great message -- great fun Pop quiz: Name an artist whose wildly popular daily cartoon frequently promotes veganism - and who is not Dan Piraro. Stumped? Well, there really isn't anyone else. Indeed, Piraro has that niche pretty much covered and is regarded as the veg community's most-recognized comic voice. His print cartoon, "Bizarro," which began two decades ago, is syndicated in more than 200 newspapers and routinely takes on topics ranging from animal rights and religion to gay rights and politics. The surreal cartoon has spawned a number of equally surreal book-length collections, the latest of which is "Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations of the Art of Dan Piraro."
But this new volume is no mere anthology of "Bizarro" cartoons. Accompanying the pages of comics, paintings, sketches and personal photographs is an extended autobiographical essay that is at turns hilarious and a compelling indictment of agribusiness. The author-artist never misses an opportunity to promote the cruelty-free lifestyle (mentioning, for example, that he won't buy paint brushes made from animal hair), and the book chronicles Piraro's transformation from, as he puts it, "a creative misfit class clown in Oklahoma to a passionate animal-rights advocate in New York City."
As an outspoken vegan activist, Piraro proves himself to be articulate, well-informed and clever. He writes: "Some argue that while we started as vegetarians, we have `evolved' to eat meat. Biologically speaking, we haven't changed at all in this regard. You might as well say we've evolved to smoke tobacco. We've been doing it for centuries and we enjoy it, but we haven't developed a natural need for it, or a defense against its ill effects." You can bet I'll be keeping that analogy handy.
Among the biggest treats in Piraro's revolutionary cartoons are the richly detailed backgrounds and extra jokes for those with the time (and eyesight) to look closely. Regular "Bizarro" readers know that Piraro hides symbols in his cartoons, such as spaceships, sticks of dynamite and pieces of pie. While he purports to explain these objects on his website, bizarro.com, he includes them simply for fun. More serious are the animal-rights messages punctuating his comics. A typical cartoon reproduced in Bizarro and Other Strange Manifestations depicts several men at a bar; one guy has a "no veal" button on his jacket while another sports a "Farm Sanctuary" tattoo. Yet another cartoon shows two characters (actually Piraro and his wife Ashley) walking past a vegan café. Perhaps best of all, the themes in these particular cartoons aren't even animal rights, making the premise of compassionate living all the more mainstream.
Even if you're not a fan of comics or Piraro's work, this oversized paperback will look great on your coffee table (even if you don't like coffee - or tables, for that matter). Who knows how many houseguests, unaware of the inhumane practices involved in factory farming, will peruse this colorful, hip-looking book, get to laughing and then realize the deeper truths within its pages? Piraro could be contributing these books for some time. He writes: "People in my family tend to live well past life expectancy, no matter how badly they abuse their bodies, so I figure with regular exercise and my vegan diet, I should live well into the next century." Let's hope so.
Mark Hawthorne, author of Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
