Author Archives: Panda in Chief

About Panda in Chief

Anne Belov paints, writes, makes prints, and is the founder of The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire. You can find her paintings at the Rob Schouten Gallery and Fountainhead Gallery, her cartoons on The Panda Chronicles, and her new book here. She also writes regularly for The Whidbey Life Magazine, a free journal of art and culture on Whidbey Island. Her main regret in life is that there is no MacArthur Grant for Panda Satire.

All’s Well That Ends?

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While we have a new President (no quotation marks needed!) I’m afraid we have not seen the last of Mittens. How can we miss you if you won’t go away? I’m tempted to run a post of Mittens’ greatest hits, but, well, he doesn’t have any!

There is news on the Panda Chronicles Collection front! I am hard at work on Book 9, and hope to have it in shape to submit to my self publishing vehicle in another week or so. Stay tuned!

And now, here is a little assortment for our Sunday ‘toon fest, of February ‘toons through the years!

Ever wondered where all these pandas came from?

How splendiferous is chocolate? Let me count the ways

What do you mean by “was?”

The Life of PIE….get it? *chortle chortle*

Bao Bao is unhappy

Could Mama Mei Xiang really be contemplating letting Pinky loose on the pandy kindy?

Have you heard? the real Pinky is now a mommy! 

You know we’re just kidding about this, right?

it’s the panda, the panda season of love!

Summit

“Why can’t my children be as well behaved as Lun Lun’s,” mused Mei Xiang

In fact, not only was as bad as we thought it would be, it was worse.

Wee are pandas too!!!!

WEll, it COULD have been a hunt of Mittens Jr.!

I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane! Stay ‘tooned for more new ‘toons this week!

Be the Bear!
Bob T Panda

Six More Weeks of Procrastination!

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Yes, once again, it’s Groundhog’s Day and we have another visit from Punxsutawney Phil. I’m pretty sure I misspelled Punxsutawney in my ‘toon, but there is only so much room and just maybe it is a DIFFERENT Phil from a DIFFERENT small town in Pennsylvania. As luck would have it, Eastern PA is currently being buried under a s**t pile of snow, so I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Phil will think we are going to have six more weeks of winter, whether he sees his shadow or not.

Here, for your enjoyment, are several haikus extolling the joys of winter:

Still sleeting out there
Maybe it will never stop
It will always sleet

A half inch of sleet
Will make my shoveling harder
F**k this stupid storm

On further review
It is also still sleeting
WTF weather?

Thanks to our guest poet, who did not give me permission to share her poems. 🙄 Thanks Cami!

And now, Live on ZooNooZ, our interview with Punxsutawney Phil!

Punxatawny, Punxsutawney…what’s a few letters between friends?

Be the Bear!
Bob T Panda

In case you missed Phil’s visit last year…

Phil is kind of excitable, isn’t he?

Sunday with Frank and Mikey

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No, they are not pandas (not even the brown ones) but Frank and Mikey have become real favorites around here. Ever since their original appearance in 2018 for the Bart Kravenclaw hearings, they keep popping up in the oddest places!

As I put ‘toons in logical (for me) order for the upcoming books, I was surprised and pleased to see how many times they popped up. and now they have featured (some might say starring) roles in a Panda Chronicles classic, Beary Poppins!

Here’s some of my favorites!

Send in the bears!

Helloooooo bears!

I like bears.

“We are NEVER going to get our security deposit back!!!”

Ruh Roh….

Frank and Mikey are just right!

Be a wild thing!

Wild thing, I think I love you!

Be the BEAR!
Bob T Panda

Pinky Has a Plan for Dat!

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One of the things I love about Pinky, is that she never lets those reflective moments get in the way of her naked ambition! I mean, she is a panda with a plan, and the plan is usually “what’s best for Pinky?” While this is not (as we have seen these last four years) a very admirable trait in humans, in a small, adorable panda…well, Pinky is a star and an icon!

Never deterred by adversity (like having THREE younger brothers- we include Ping) Pinky has picked up the pieces of her failed attempt to win the presidency and is moving on!

“What’s next? (for Pinky!)”

Bikkie was NOT making a joke!

Be the Bear!
Bob T Panda

Mittens Ruins Everything!

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A great collective sigh of relief went out over the country at 12:01 PM EST on Wednesday. The naysayers and the #NeverDemocracy folks may disagree, but if allowed to govern, I think the Biden/Harris administration will do good things for all of us. It hurts my heart and brain to hear the lies that are still being told by those who tried to overturn a fair election. I hope normal sleep will return someday soon.

But meanwhile, Pinky has some thoughts…

Despair not little bear! Daddee’s Panda Express Card is but a room away!

Brave enough to be a panda,
Bob T Panda

The Year in Review!

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I have not done a Year in Review post yet, and as such, I think I’ll do it now! You’ll be happy to know that I am finally spring into action (when I am not stress napping or having weird dreams about not being able to write my name on a piece of paper) and gathering my ‘toons and organizing them to do not one, but TWO books! Having flaked out on creating any new books for the last 3 years, I have enough ‘toons to make two bigger than normal books.

I decided that one of them will be mostly political ‘toons, and while the other is not entirely devoid of politics (because 2016-2020), it leans more toward panda-ish subjects and will contain all the longer stories I wrote in the last several years.

But now! On with the Year in Review!!!

January

The year started off with impeachment and plenty of hypocrisy to go around!

February

ZooNooZ continues to get all the top notch interviews! Look out Rachel Maddow!

March

Meet Ruth Panda Ginsbear, who joined the rest of the felty pandas!

The Notorious RPG

April

The pandemic lockdown begins…a few months too late.

May

Pinky does her part to help supply masks for everyone. SOMEBODY has to be the boss!

June

With the country in lockdown (well, parts of it anyway) wild animals return in force to the National Parks!

July

When you can’t make fun of politics via panda satire, the terrorists have won. We try to do our part!

August

In August, a dear friend of pandas passed away unexpectedly. She loved pandas and NASCAR, so this was the first in a 3 part tribute to her memory. We sure miss you over at Twitter, Jayelle.

September

Frank and Mikey got their own talk show in 2020!

October

With a new baby cubby at the Panda House, Mei decided to hire a nanny! Welcome to Beary Poppins!

November

Bikkie has a name and gets his outfit!

December

uh oh. Generally speaking, grizzly bears do not make good nannies.

Well, that was our year in review! If you want to read the entirety of each story, just look for the archive tab on the right side of the home page so you can read the entire story! (Or you can wait and buy the books!)

Pandaing on into (we hope) a better year,
Bob T Panda

A New Day Has Dawned

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Morning has broken.
T*ump has left the building

WE HAVE A PRESIDENT (No * or ” ” needed!)

You may or may not have voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but they are our new President and Vice President. I think they are people of integrity, that they will work hard to fix the things T*ump broke, and things that were broken before he got there. They will not be successful with everything, but they will give it their best effort.

Many of us (like me) will be traumatized for a while. We came so close to losing our democracy and I am really glad that we didn’t! President Biden has put some really smart and dedicated people in charge of getting the pandemic under control, and while we have some hard times ahed, I believe that they will be able to get it under control if we all do our part.

Meanwhile, we can say a not very fond “Buh BYE” to the  man who would have liked to be king…

Mittens has left the building.

For those who are interested, my felty Fight Bunny has been claimed, but their project has a bit more to go before the reach their funding goal. Check out The Effervescent Adventures of Fight Bunny and make a pledge, for a book (digital or otherwise) and mebbee a Fight Bunny pin!

We are the Pandas!
Bob T Panda

It’s Inauguration Eve…

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So…what’s happening? Anything special going on?

Yeah, me too. My nerves are about shot.

Here’s something to take your mind off of things: On Sunday, I alluded to a special offering that will be appearing on the Kickstarter project The Effervescent Adventures of Fight Bunny. It’s a project to bring an all ages graphic novel to life, and with only 9 days left on their campaign they are a little over $6,000 from their goal. Because 2021, I still feel the need to stab things repeatedly with very sharp needles, so I made a felty Fight Bunny, and offered it to them to help them towards reaching their funding goal.

Fight Bunny!

There will only be one Fight Bunny (because, ya know, not taking someone else’s intellectual property to make money!) Visit their project page and scroll down the page to see the reward listing (under my name, I think) to choose this unique felty. Fight Bunny is between 3-4″ tall. I think this is going to be a fun book and if the felty is out of your budget, the book is being offered both in print and as an ebook. Also FIGHT BUNNY PINS!!! Check it out!

And now, Today’s ‘toon!

Mei and Tian2 contemplate the joys of the not very empty nest. (Grizzly bears take up a lot of room!)

Panda on for at least another 24 hours!
Bob T Panda

BTW: There are some new designs on the Redbubble website! They are masks suitable for formal occasions!

While you were waiting for whatever was going to happen next week…

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Well, here we are, waiting for the other shoe to drop, hoping against hope that all will be well, or at least well as to the successful completion of President Biden and Vice President Harris’ inauguration.

I thought I might take this opportunity to thank you all once again, for these last 11 years of Fun with Pandas. I decided not to do a January Kickstarter project, as right now I don’t seem to have the required energy. However, a project came across my Twitter feed that I thought some of you might be interested in.

I follow a lot of other writers, cartoonists and illustrators on Twidder, and Jennifer L Meyer is one of my favorites because BUNNIES!!! I love her drawing style. She has teamed up with Nate Cosby and Ariana Maher to create The Effervescent Adventures of Fight Bunny.

Because I can’t leave well enough alone, and because I like supporting other artists when I can, I made them an offer I was pretty sure they couldn’t refuse. If you’ve been following along here, you can probably guess what it is, so you might want to head over there first thing Monday morning to check it out. At the very least, you might decide that your home library won’t be complete without your own copy of The Effervescent Adventures of Fight Bunny

Because BUNNIES!!!!

Here are some of my ‘toons about doing Kickstarter campaigns!

and that’s what it’s all about!

Get ready…….

Says Babette de Panda: “It’s all about MOI` “

paws

Put your paws together for the panda kindergarten!

I thought mommee hid Pinky’s magical wand!

away we go

We’re off!

ready

Think of the next couple weeks like NPR and their pledge drives!

Be the bear! (Or maybe today it should be Be the Bun!)
Bob T Panda

Don’t forget to check out The Effervescent Adventures of Fight Bunny!!!