When he contributed these wonderful drawings to Texas Arts Revue, Dan Piraro was a freelance artist and the lead singer for The Doo. He was working at Neiman Marcus downtown, where my good friend Sandy Matthews (then Steadman) was an art director.
Sandy saw some of his early drawings and strongly recommended he let her show them to me. I fell in love with his wry sense of humor and almost immediately put "Raymond The Sumo Duck Swallower" below on the cover, Spaulding J. Fitzhugh on the inside front cover, others on a full page inside and The Coach on the Subscription Page of Issue Number 8 in the winter of 1982.
Publication here may have given him the impetus and confidence needed to go on to become one of America's premiere cartoonists, whose Bizzaro Comics are now syndicated in many newspapers across the country. I tried for a long time back in the early 80s to return his drawings, but our locations never coincided, and I have no idea where the originals are now. These reproductions were all scanned from the issue below.
...Raymond the Sumo Duck Swallower
...There was no time to
debate the issue...
Spaulding J. Fitzhugh needed a reason to live
& he needed it now.
UNJUST SOCIETY
Sy wore a kilt to hide his
boyish figure, had excellent taste in large ties,
often sported
a blue pair of aviator sunglasses atop his slightly
"un"flat
flattop, and felt very sorry for crushed birds....
Still, they
kept him locked up.
Desmond... The successful young executive and the people he stepped on to get there.
Dennis is founding a new
religion based on self-deprivation, pain,
ill health, looking
funny, tin cans, and Norma Kamali outfits.
Most of the money he
collects goes to doctor bills.
At halftime Coach Trunbull showed the
team what would
happen if they failed to come from behind for the all-important
victory.
I used this charming drawing with a big "We Need Your Help" headlined subscription ad. Thank goodness I no longer have to sell subscriptions, deal with the post office or have to scrimp and save to publish in ink on expensive paper.
Dan's caption for this was ... "
All Rights Reserved. It is illegal to
reproduce these pages in any medium,
but it's perfectly fine to distribute our URL.