Cartoonist Dan Piraro, creator of the comic "Bizarro," says he is "not the jackass I accidentally portrayed myself as" in a cartoon printed Jan. 1 in the Dallas Morning News.

The one-panel cartoon shows two cowboys sitting beside a roaring campfire. One strums his guitar as he sings, "It's been six long weeks since I seen a woman, and yer startin' to look pretty good," as his companion glares at him from the other side of the fire.

The tag line at the bottom of the panel dubs the tune "Jeremiah's Last Song."
Some GLBT readers were upset by the cartoon's apparent implication that violence against gays is justified.

One reader, Brad Loomis of Dallas, called the cartoon "hateful and irresponsible." The cartoon seemed to advocate the killing of gays, Loomis said.

During a telephone interview Wednesday from his home in New York, Piraro apologized for what he said was an unintended undertone in the cartoon.
"Sometimes, when I am under pressure from a deadline, I will send in a cartoon without thinking of how different people might view it. This time, I made a particularly egregious mistake," Piraro said.

The cartoonist said he has gotten a lot of mail from people complaining about the cowboy cartoon. Many of the critics saw it it as a reference to the movie "Brokeback Mountain," a love story between two cowboys set Wyoming from 1963 through the early 80s. But the cartoonist said there was no connection.

Dan Piraro, a cartoonist who produces “Bizarro,” says he is embarassed that a recent edition making fun of “Brokeback Mountain” offended gay people. He called it a stupid mistake and said he felt horrible.

"I send the cartoons in at least eight weeks before they actually go to print. When I sent this one in, I had never heard of "'Brokeback Mountain,'" Piraro said.

Piraro, who said he has been doing cartoons for 20 years, said he drew the panel with a different idea in mind.

"I was thinking about a two heterosexual men who have been out there for a while without any women around, and things are getting tense. I never meant to imply that one of them was homosexual or that one of them was going to get killed. I just never thought of it that way," he said.

"Now, out of my own stupidity, I have done something that is embarrassing and very painful for me," Piraro said. "I feel horrible about it. My fear is that there are thousands of people out there who have seen it and think I am homophobic."

Piraro said his "Bizarro" cartoons tend to have a liberal slant, although he usually steers clear of political issues.

"I am not supposed to do politically-charged cartoons. Editors don't buy "'Bizarro' as a political strip. They just want humor from me," Piraro said.
"But I am not the kind of person who is good at keeping quiet about things like that, so I do it [political humor] anyway sometimes."

He said he has drawn cartoons with animal rights themes, and some that are critical of President Bush.

"I am not the kind of person who is good at keeping quiet about things like that," Piraro said. The cartoonist has also done a handful of cartoons supporting gay civil rights and drawn criticism, he said.

"Every time I do something that is pro-gay, I get a lot of mail from the conservatives. Editors get mad and threaten to cancel my strip. But I do it anyway because it is something I believe in," he said.

Piraro said he understands why gay people would be offended by the cowboy cartoon.

"But one thing I have noticed over the years is that people who are used to being slammed around, like the gay community, will often take things never intended to be an affront and see it as a slam," he said. "People who are used to being shot at tend to duck every time they hear a bang. It's understandable."

Carolyn Poh, a lifestyles copy editor for the Morning News, agreed that the cartoon appeared to have anti-gay undertones.

"I just looked at it and it certainly seems anti-gay to me, and it does make you think of the movie, "'Brokeback Mountain,'" Poh said. "It just goes to show you that even the best artists can slip up sometimes."

Mike Peters, comics columnist for the Morning News, said he knew of only one complaint a letter from Loomis that had come into the newspaper about the "Bizarro" cartoon. Peters said he was satisfied with Piraro's explanation, given what he knew of the cartoonist's track record and his previous cartoons supporting gay rights.

"I don't find it hard to believe his explanation of what happened," Peters said.

E-mail nash@dallasvoice.com

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition of January 6, 2006.