Dan Piraro

Daniel Charles Piraro (born 1958) is a painter, illustrator, and cartoonist best known for his award-winning syndicated cartoon panel Bizarro. Piraro's cartoons have been reprinted in 16 book collections (as of 2012). He has also written three books of prose.

Piraro was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and his family moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma when he was 4 years old. When he was in junior high school his family moved to Tulsa, where he graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1976.

He dropped out of Washington University in St. Louis. He lived in Dallas and New York City for many years and currently resides in Los Angeles after separating from his wife, Ashley Lou Smith. Syndicated since 1985,Bizarro was appearing in 250 papers by 2006.

In 2013, Piraro coined the idiom "New Artists" to represent those cartoonists who distribute their work directly onto the Internet, without the use of a syndicate or a business intermediary.

In 2014, he is hosting the Fox reality television show Utopia.