Neil Fein's Blog

Bizarro Among the Savages
by Dan Piraro

For anyone unfamiliar with the work of Dan Piraro, the cartoon Bizarro is one of the oddest, funniest and best of the non-mainstream rectangles of inky real estate on funny pages across the country. I've been following Piraro's work since I found Too Bizarro hiding in the Rutgers Bookstore in 1988, all the way up to his most recent, the hyped Life Is Strange and So Are You, an annotated collection of his Sunday strips. Given the Piraro's solid, imaginative writing style, it's no surprise that the annotations are the best part of the book.

In order to promote his at-the-time brand new book, cleverly titled Bizarro Number 9 in order to clue readers into the fact that there were eight other such collections floating around on bookstore shelves and remainder bins, Piraro enlisted the help of his brand-new set of e-friends, most of whom he met after publishing his email address in his strips, at the time a new and fresh idea. His tales of life on the road, confronting his fear of strangers and fear of being alone, are vividly told, and are for the most part funny, concise, and have a thematic point that is illuminated later down the road. While the politics and limitations of newspaper cartoons are discussed, they aren't belabored; it's always just another float in the parade.

Much of this book, particularly several episodes of hallucinatory flashback and revelation from the mouths of pop culture icons, has the feel of a fictionalized journal; Piraro's life as it could be in a Bizarro cartoon. However, this will be appropriately proper to those familiar with his work. What parts of the book are fiction is not only an unimportant question, it's inappropriate after getting into the spirit of Piraro's world and head. What's the occasional talking animal or oracular slime mold amongst friends?

I first read this book when it came out, and recently re-read it by way of taking a break from a much longer and more difficult work. While hardly great literature, I had a great time in Piraro's world; Bizarro Among the Savages is a wonderfully irreverent look at modern day life in the US, through the warped lens of Piraro's obsessions and phobias. Even though the internet culture portrayed in the book is outdated, the book has stayed fresh and is worth reading and re-reading.