Dan Piraro
1958– · Surrealist painter and cartoonist, creator of the Bizarro panel
Daniel Charles Piraro (born 1958 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American painter, illustrator and cartoonist best known for the syndicated panel Bizarro. Its surreal, offbeat humour and recurring motifs such as eyeballs, pies and aliens have made it one of the most recognisable panels in the comics world.
He grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1976. He later left Washington University in St. Louis. After years in Dallas and New York City, he has published his panels in many collections, including Bizarro (1986), Best of Bizarro (1992) and The Three Little Pigs Buy the White House (2004).
Piraro describes himself as politically liberal and progressive, and some of his panels have caused controversy, such as the 2005 gay-marriage cartoon. He became a vegetarian in 2002, and animal cruelty often appears in his work. Alongside his cartooning, he is also a surrealist painter, and his graphic novel Peyote Cowboy has been recognised as well.