When I fist started drawing panda satire, I made a cartoon about Bob as a young panda, having a love affair with his MePhone and confusing Cruise Control with Auto Pilot. This was long before there was talk out in the world of Google or Tesla’s self driving cars. Once again, the Panda Chronicles predicts the future! (See Scottish Panda’s own Panda Clan Tartan)
What could be more scottish than Pandas?
For today’s Fabulous Furry Friday, I thought we would revisit that cartoon from long ago, during my first year of pandaing around. (In case you might confuse cruise control with auto pilot)
Enjoy!
Cruise control is not…
…auto pilot.
Bob has continued to have automotive problems, especially when the panda kindergarten gets their paws on his car…
Nothing like the panda kindergarten, out for a joyride in Bob’s jalopy!
So much for those new navigation systems…or is it “nagagation systems”?
Mr. Badger just returned from a trip to the mountains of our neighbors to the north, and one of the things he saw while there lead me to think that the time was NOW for this very important public service announcement. What he saw was a grizzly bear crossing the highway just a little way in front of his car, and then what he saw was a bunch of people following it with cameras at the ready. I am not making this up.
I am only going to say this once (a year):
Do. Not. Try. To. Take. A. Selfie. With. A. Grizzly!!!!!
Hey! That reminds me of a song!
…if I were a panda, yadda dah dah da- da- da- AAARGH! I can’t stop!!!!!
And now, our Salute to Stupid Selfies!!!!
Coming to a mountain road in France, really soon:
Who says real life can’t be funny?
What was that they said about being prohibited from taking a selfie with a tiger?
Much better to take a selfie with pandas!
You know we’re just kidding about this, right?
And then Pinky thought this would be a really great fundraiser for her campaign…
I really had no idea what she was up to.
And then maybe since you can’t take a selfie with a tiger, you could take one at…for instance…the running of the bulls!
AAAAAAhhhHHHHHH!
Probably safer to just take a selfie in the Oval Office during your White House Tour…
“Get those pandas off my desk!”
Have a Fabulous Furry Friday, and while you are having a Fabulous Fourth of July, you leave off with the fireworks and just load up on hot dogs and beans.
What better distraction is there to world events, the 2016 presidential election, and the lack of cake at my house, than BABY PANDA SEASON ??????? Pandas are popping out all over, and while we wait to see if Lun Lun (mom of the Meihems) or Lady MacBear of Edinburgh are going to gift us with bouncing baby pandas, we must be satisfied with reports and pictures of panda kiddies in China and Belgium.
So to celebrate Baby Panda Season, we here at The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire and Fabulous Furry Friday bring you some of our favorite cartoons about….baby pandas!(What? you thought it was going to be about the gross national product forecasts or the effect on global economies if Britain leaves the EU?)
“Howdy do! I’m Mr. Wu! Who are you?”
Yo ho ho and a bottle of BooBeer!
And then just one year later, Meihem ensued!
Oh, those southern Belle pandas!
And then along came PINKY!
Such a little darling! How could her big brother resist spoiling her?
Princess Pinky is drawing a line in the sandbox. Even as a baby, she was a force to be reckoned with.
But then we had no new baby pandas till 10 months ago when Pinky’s little brother Bubba arrived…although that event was a mixed blessing…
PP: um, dis is not going to interrupt my presidential campaign, is it?
One of Mei Xiang’s twin cubs did not survive, and Pinky dealt with the loss as only Pinky can…
Mr Bun has a question, daddee.
I love Pinky’s resilience! But we would not be doing our job here if we did not include one of my favorite baby Bubba ‘toons.
Bubba’s first feature role!
He’s small for now, but Bubba Bei Bei is shaping up to be a whole lot of panda!
I hope we have distracted you sufficiently from the trials and turmoil of the real world.
Be the Bear, everyone!
Bob T Panda
It’s no wonder some people (such as myself) have a little bit of a hard time separating fact from fiction. As you will see in next week’s ‘toons, when Mittens takes to the stage, there was so much of his dialog that I could pull from actual news items, that I really didn’t have to make much up. In some ways, it makes my life easier, but in other ways… I’d like the world we live in to be kind and fair and…um…have so many pandas that they become a pest: invasive rather than endangered. They could go into neighborhoods where people have foolishly planted bamboo, which has now gotten out of control, and take care of it, providing fertilizer in addition to pesky plant removal. The Putting Pandas to Work program could go global!
Putting Pandas to Work goes global!
Along with all the political news of the week, I’ve also seen a few references to “sock puppet” accounts on various social media outlets. I don’t know what the big deal is. I’ve always loved puppets.
But they’re so cute!
And as various politicians toot their horns about their popularity, as opposed to that of their opponents…
See? I told you it was broken!
(Ha ha! That one has become one of my all time favorites!)
But as we head into the home stretch of this very long campaign season, let me leave you with a ‘toon that reminds us, that the most important positions in the world should not be awarded through stoking the fears of some, but because of what we can bring to a table where there is room for all.
Consider this my Werld Peez Pandifesto
Be the Bear
Bob T Panda
And now for a word from our sponsor! If you enjoy these cartoons and want to support *me* the creator of the aforementioned cartoons, consider visiting my Book Page and buying my books for yourself or for friends! A portion of my sales also goes to support our friends at Pandas International, who support actual pandas!
Recently, it was brought to my attention, that the collective noun for a group of pandas is an embarrassment of pandas. I find this highly suspect, not to mention somewhat demeaning to pandas. Is this a ploy by certain political factions to imply that pandas are not fit for office? The Hmmmph! factor for this little piece of so called news is extremely high. What’s so embarrassing about being a panda, I’d like to know! well, yes, we are kind of messy eaters, and not much to brag about in the romance department, but we are awfully cute, don’t you think?
Meanwhile happy happy happy news from Belgium yesterday, where Hao Hao and Xing Hui are the proud parents of a bouncing baby cub! Fingers and paws are being crossed that the little pink bundle of joy survives its first days and weeks. Panda cubs weigh about four ounces at birth and have no fur!
So to celebrate this blessed event in Belgium, I thought I would share some ‘toons about….baby pandas! Huzzah! Let’s start with my first baby panda, the ineffable Wu Self!
“Howdy do! I’m Mr. Wu! Who are you?”
“Wu calls his dance, ‘Ode to a Weaf’ “
Moving on, we have the early days of her pink (but slightly dangerous) self, Princess Pinky!
Pinky tests her powers….
And who could forget the early days of Meihem?
The first appearance of the Meihems!
And how happy we were when Bubba arrived in DC…
These paws are made for walking….eventually.
Feed me, Mama!
Don’t forget to tune in Sunday when we continue with our coverage of the Mr. Bun Disappearance!
Today, Fabulous Furry Friday looks at one of our favorite subjects, Panda Cams!!!! Where would we be without panda cams? (Yes, I know, I know… I’d be getting a lot more work done, but you know, watching panda videos is very relaxing, or so I’ve heard somewhere)
Back in the early days, the panda cams were only in black and white, in fixed positions, and often were only available a few hours a day. Now, they are mostly in color, high definition, viewable 24 hours a day, and camera operators follow the pandas around, at least during the pandas wakeful times. (Don’t say it. They do NOT sleep all the time) So put your paws together and give a big huzzah to the panda cam operators, who are mostly unpaid volunteers who are dedicated to giving pandaholics such as myself our daily fix of pandaliscious goodness.
Some of the new high definition panda cams are sponsored by places like Animal Planet (Zoo Atlanta Panda cam) or the Ford Motor Company (National Zoo). For this, we pandaholics thank you!
In the early days of panda cams….
And then there are those dedicated folks who record hours and hours of panda cam footage, and then edit it, so we can watch 20 minutes of pandas playing instead of 14 hours of pandas sleeping. One of my favorite panda video creators, is my Facebook friend who has a YouTube channel called Doxiemom19 who I would credit with supplying me with the best bits of panda life, so that I can turn it into panda satire and illustrations and not have to be constantly watching the panda cams raw footage, and instead, bring you my take on pandas.
What pandas get up to when they are in front of a camera…
#6 is getting ready to make his move!
Huzzah!….ooops.
Speaking of being mauled by bears…
And even wild pandas are subject to invasion of privacy…
The secret lives of the wild panda!
Hope you have a fabulous furry weekend! Be the bear!
Today is Earth Day and we almost forgot to celebrate it. Of course, anything with pandas is rather celebratory, so um…have I convinced you of anything yet? Darn… sO let’s just forget all about what we might or might not have forgotten, as Fabulous Furry Friday celebrates Earth Day because….
We R Endangered!
Yes, that’s right, pandas are endangered and if you think we are going to let you forget it, you have another think coming! Check out this fun video I found about pandas on youtube!
After you’re done watching that, here’s the Friday line up for this fabulously furry day!
You forgot your Binky Bar!
One of my early ‘toons! (and still one of my faves!)
Vote for pandas! We’re endangered!
Does being endangered have NO privileges?
Pandas support all endangered animals!
Keep cool, cat, and don’t go blaming women for stuff. That is SO not the way to get votes…
Hope you have a happy and fulfilling Earth day…um…when you’re endangered, does time really matter? Well, yeah, actually it does.
We are still popping champagne corks and eating cuppycakes to celebrate my newly agented status, so I thought I would share more of my literature of the panda ‘toons for this weeks fabulous Furry Friday! Huzzah!
From the earliest days of panda satire, pandas have been writing books about…well, about being pandas…
Everything I know
And then, there was Bob’s memoir, “Black and White Like Me”…
More literature of the panda!
And of course we wanted to encourage a love of reading in the panda kindergarten…
I think you get my point….
And what panda doesn’t have an abiding love of Shakespeare….?
After all, the playings the thing….
And let’s not forget that in addition to panda satire, I am also a painter…
This week, Fabulous Furry Friday salutes Literary Pandas and Literature of the Panda! Huzzah!
And now, the pandas are out of the bag!
This week, after the conclusion of a six month mentorship program through the Nevada chapter of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, I have been taken on as a client by my brilliant and kind mentor, Gordon Warnock. I’m already on the Fuse Literarywebsite listed as a client!!!! I hope they have hidden all the cuppycakes, because, well, you know…pandas!
I can’t say enough good things about the Nevada mentorship program. If you are a member of SCBWI, I recommend you look in to it, (the next cycle does not start until 2017, so you have some time to get a project in working order). I met many wonderful writers, who I hope will be friends for life. And to all of you here who have been following me since the early days of panda satire, I can only say thank you a thousand times. Maybe ten thousand times. You keep me going with your laughter and comments. Stay tuned. Pandas are going places and I hope you’ll come with us.
But first, how about some Literary Pandas?
It all started here…..
Do you like my new book?
Pandas have long been active in literary pursuits
What do you mean by “was?”
May all your Fridays be Furry and Fabulous!
Be the Bear,
Bob T Panda
If pandas know anything, they know about science, so today Fabulous Furry Friday is very pleased to present Pandas in Science or, everything you wanted to know, but want to know the wrong information!
We start our encore presentation with a cartoon that was inspired by a real story about pandas, and also contributed to this past Wednesday’s cartoon!
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is that handsome panda I see before me?
And one of my all time favorites, a news story about how an animal’s abstract patterning can increase the likelihood of becoming a successful predator.
No nonsense to be found here!
And if we take the way-back machine to a couple of our early explorations of the conjunction of pandas and science, we have this in depth interpretation of our carbon foot print:
are you SURE it’s not “carbonated”?
well, what if I….
but…WeREndangered!
Hmmm…I hope these cartoons don’t get out. Pinky may have some additional ammunition in the next debate. Don’t tell, ‘kay?
Be the Bear and have a Fabulous Furry Friday!
Bob T Panda
