NEWS

'Bizarro' comic adds some new absurdities

By JACKIE LOOHAUIS
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Monday, March 12, 2001

A little space alien peeping out of a tropical thicket. A bunny rabbit in a junked car. An owner-less eyeball peering up from the pavement of Disney World.

They're strange. They're weird. They're "Bizarro."

Many fans of the mondo nutso comic "Bizarro," which appears in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Good Morning section, recently have noticed something more peculiar than usual going on. Hidden within the main drawings of talking chickens and buxom snow-women, little symbols keep cropping up: a slice of pie here, an upside-down bird there. What does it all mean?

We tracked "Bizarro" creator Dan Piraro down in his Dallas studio to try and find out. There are some things we could force out of him, but others...

Piraro told us he started planting the little symbols "a little over a year ago. I was using them as a way to say 'hello' to the important people in my life."

The first symbol was the royal crown, because his girlfriend uses a crown in her artwork. "And little by little it started to grow into a whole system."

A secret system, the meaning of which the artist is loath to divulge.

Loath, that is, until it all -- by stunning coincidence -- is revealed in a new "Bizarro" book due out this fall titled "Life Is Strange And So Are You."

Piraro also promises that some of the tiny totems will be discussed in a new Web site he's unveiling in about six weeks, which also will market "a line of strange, useless inexpensive gifts meant to satirize the kind of products that most cartoon strips end up licensing." He promises, however, not to sell stuffed animals or cute note paper.

Readers should bear in mind that everything Piraro does is designed to help fans achieve "Ultimate Bizarro Awareness," a cross between the teachings of Zen and Rod Serling.

UBA, said Piraro, is "a mind-set. My readers tend to be people like me who notice things that a lot of people miss. Like when you ask for a small pizza at Domino's and they say they only have medium and large. How can there be a medium without a small? The symbols are signposts on the road to Ultimate Bizarro Awareness. I'm a pilgrim on that road myself."

But, oh, Bizarro Master, will you not tell your followers just a bit more about the true meaning of the symbols? Well, because this reporter was so nice and seemed well down the road to Ultimate Bizarro-ness herself, said Piraro, he would give the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a scoop and reveal:

-- "The UFO Alien is a symbol of the immense and immeasurable universe and all its possibilities. As anyone who has ever found themselves at the cold, steely end of an extraterrestrial's medical examination can tell you, aliens are already here and living among us. They are benevolent creatures who wish to study us and learn what they can about our culture. Disguised as earthly creatures of all sorts, they watch us daily. You undoubtedly know many and do not realize it. My Aunt Ruth is an alien. Two of my three brothers-in-law are. Most fast-food workers are, as well as some dogs and all cats. It has been scientifically proven that people who disagree with this are stupid."

-- "The K2 symbol is representative of the names of my two daughters, Kodak and Krapuzar. I just made that up."

Copyright 2001, Journal Sentinel Inc., All rights reserved.
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