Friday, May 30, 2008

National Cartoonist Society Profile: Dan Piraro


Another wacky member of the NCS is the popular shtick man, Dan Piraro. Here is his zany biography in his own words from a few years ago...Dan Piraro was born in the latter half of the 20th century to a pair of small-town game show hosts in the American Midwest. When not being forced to attend church or Catholic school, he was left alone in the family trailer home with his eleven siblings, five dogs, and a mysterious man named "Betty." At the age of eighteen he fled to Dallas, with little formal education and no job skills. Shortly after his parole in 1985, he got into cartooning and has been unable to escape since. He has been married to a woman well out of his league since 1980 and they have two children of similar gender.



Bizarro was first syndicated by Chronicle Features in 1985, then moved to Universal Press Syndicate in 1995. There have been to date nine Bizarro collections published domestically, as well as a lunchboxful over seas. There have been a number of T-shirt, calendar and coffee mug deals over the years, the memories of which are still too painful to discuss. As of this writing, no one has had the courage to bestow an award of any kind on Piraro for his cartooning efforts, although a colleague once described him a s a pleasant person with adequate manners.

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