Comments on: Up Our Alley

By: ImaginaryLover

ImaginaryLover — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:22:13 +0000

Piraro’s humor is always so off-kilter that it’s impossible (or tedious) to explain. One “gets it” or one does not. With explanations, it’s hard not to kill the joke. As one who has awoken in countless alleys (and beds, etc.) without remembering what city I was in, let alone what day it was, I got the humor immediately, albeit with my own particular slant. One does not have to be a drunk to get it.
Bizarro is the first strip I turn to every day.

By: Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:58:55 +0000

Kyle may not be able to remember how he got there, but it looks like he suspects that the slice of pie was involved somehow.

By: Ein O Fyle

Ein O Fyle — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:00:33 +0000

If I woke up in Kyle/Dan/unmaskedman’s situation, I’d START drinking heavily.

(hey, no more could be added… time for subtration)

By: brien

brien — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:16:43 +0000

I think Brian’s right about the cliche thing, but it’s skewered like this:

The cliche is that someone stops drinking when they wake up in an alley, but it’s always with a bottle of cheap booze in a brown paper bag. (Also, they’re wearing a long ratty overcoat and haven’t shaved for no less than 3 days, but no more than 8 days.)

But that’s not how Kyle drinks. He doesn’t do the cheap booze in a bag thing. He likes to sit at the bar.

So, the only way for Kyle to have the cliche amnesiac drinking cliche to happen to him is if the bar ALSO winds up in the alley. But, the gag isn’t about how the bar got in the alley, it’s simply about the juxtaposition of the cliche objects (booze in bag, overcoat, stubble) with his situation (barstool, indoor clothing, beer on tap).

By: Dan V

Dan V — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:21:53 +0000

And while we’re on the subject, he also has a bunny icon and an alien in a flying saucer that occasionally appear. The pie and dynamite are in nearly every panel. Looking for this stuff is kind of like trying to find Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo in his movies - a fun diversion that sometimes is more entertaining than the original work.

By: Lola

Lola — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:08:50 +0000

The pie slice always reminds me of a grinning aligator.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:05:26 +0000

The stick of dynamite and slice of pie have nothing to do with the gag. They are Pirarro’s signature icons that appear in every panel he draws. He’s been doing that for years but, as demonstrated by some commenters here, I think they sometimes confuse readers who, naturally, try to figure out how these items figure into the joke. There used to be a dead bird icon too but I don’t see that one in this panel.

By: John

John — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:37:47 +0000

Apparently the bar was about to be demolished, and Kyle was there on its last night of business. At least, I think that’s what the stick of dynamite in the window signifies. I dunno, maybe it’s a walkie-talkie. I suspect a real-life demolition would not involve random sticks of dynamite placed in windows and left. The bar also served food, although all of that was eaten except for one slice of pie that fell to the pavement.

I think Arik’s is the real answer: Kyle blacked out at a bar and is now in a mysterious situation that he will never figure out, and it has scared him into sobriety.

By: Mulmor

Mulmor — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:23:23 +0000

Well, I’m mostly with no. 3 (Singapore Bill), though for me it looked like the barman couldn’t get rid of Kyle, thus he just ripped out the part of the bar he occupied and carried him out the back door, presumably with the help of other patrons.

Why the barman would actually mutilate his own means to create income instead of just throwing Kyle out is left as an excercise to the reader.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:10:31 +0000

Intersting. My thoughts were that the cartoon was taking the idea of waking up in an alley and not remembering anything beyond drinking in the bar (such as getting up from the barstool), and having Kyle actually wake up in the alley without having got up from the barstool.