Blog Post 14

I could not find a great deal of historical and cultural research for the specific context of this comic, but I did find some on the author himself. Dan Piraro is a cartoonist who began illustrating advertisemnets for Neiman-Marcus in 1981 and later was able to become a full-time cartoonist around 1990. In 1995, he began his first book tour, which was entirely reader supported.

Today, Dan Piraro has many different books where his comics are illustrated; they are called Bizarro. Piraro receive the National Cartoonist Society Panel Cartoon Award for 1999, 2000, and 2001, he has also been nominated for their Reuben Award several times for his work on the strip (Wikipedia). The majority of Piraro’s comics are not like his snowman one’s and use more cartoon looking pieces. I think that the snowman strips look to be a little more realistic than the regualar comic, except for the humanistic features that they are given.

Since doing some research on Dan Piraro’s work, I have noticed a significant change of pace from the snowmen comics. He definitely likes to use both humans and animals in his strips and they are all given human characteristics. Cats, dogs, pigs, rabbits, etc. all stand upright, just like humans do. When looking at this specific piece you can tell by all three of the characters that they possess human qualities. Both of the snowmen can contol their bodies (i.e., arms, facial expressions, ect.) and they can also defend themselves when put into danger. The rabbit in this piece is obviously the bad guy and holds up the hair dryer in terms of his weapon of choice.

You can also notice the different gender situations that seem to be appearing in this strip. The female snowman is a little off to the side and is showing a frightened expression. The male snowman is defending his kind from the evil rabbit. Assuming that the rabbit is male, he does not approach the female and sort of has a “stare down” with the male snowman.

I think that by giving both the snowmen and the rabbit human characteristics, it shows the true weakness of what is actually going on. We can interpret that the hair dryer, in which the rabbit is holding, is dangerous and/or harmful to the snowman not only because we know that it produces heat, but because of the expressions that are shown on their faces and through their emotions.

Works Cited

Heintjes, T. (n.d.). The Dan Piraro Interview. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoonist Index: http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/piraro/piraro.asp

Wikipedia. (July, July 16). Dan Piraro. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Piraro