What could be more Fabulous than Friday?

10 Replies

Next week we take a look at The Giant Panda Zoo Awards ceremony and all your favorite pandas will be there! Will Pinky attempt to wrestle the gold medal for Panda Personality of the Year away from her cousin, Princess Dumpling? Does Babette de Panda have something up her haute couture sleeve to disrupt the ceremony? What skullduggery will Inspector Panda and his very clever assistant Mr. Wu uncover? Did Mei Xiang hide Pinky’s magical wand so she can’t…um…make adjustments to the awards?

Stay tuned till Sunday, when all will be revealed. We thought we would share some of Pinky’s triumphs and moments of glory to get you in the mood.

Uh oh! This year they only got BRONZE in bestie habitat!

“Do you know who I am????” Yeah, we do.

Beware, the power of the paw!

Princess Pinky is drawing a line in the sandbox.

Pinky answers difficult questions from the press in her own way.

Have a Fabulous Furry Friday! And don’t forget, your purchase of all of the Panda Chronicle Books (and Pandamorphosis) helps to keep the panda satire coming your way. Not to mention that you can have panda fun at home seven days a week. Huzzah!

And, if you love the artwork of Pandamorphosis, prints of all the major images from the book are available from my page at The Gratitude Gallery website. Check ’em out! You might also enjoy visiting some of our friends, pandas and not, from our Pandas Love Links page. Tell em we said “Hi!”

Tea Time for Pandas

20 Replies

In our never ending quest to bring culture to the panda kindergarten, Bob decides to introduce them to the quintessential English High Tea, complete with little cucumber sandwiches and…um…cuppycakes. It is tea time for pandas!

The long, dark tea time of the soul….

I think it is time for a little something! I feel rather 11 o’clock-ish.

Just a reminder to stay tuned to this station on your internet dial, as next week we bring you more from the Giant Panda Zoo Awards! Interviews with award winning pandas, as they walk on the red carpet and pass through the velvet ropes, keeping the riff-raff away (and of course, by riff-raff, we mean anyone who isn’t Pinky)

Get ready for a star studded evening as all the nominated pandas strut their stuff for their fans.

Till then, Be the Bear!
Bob T. Panda

Bao Bao Responds to Her Defeat…

14 Replies

Today, our nation’s number one panda, Bao Bao responds to her stunning defeat in this years Giant Panda Zoo Awards. The GPZA is a little like the Acadamy Awards, for pandas, so it’s easy to see why little miss Pinky would be so um…shall we say agitated? by her disappointing showing in this year’s voting.

But first, we have a story of sordid deception, tragedy, sugar overload, unfair advantage and death by chocolate, brought to our attention by one of our alert readers, Ms Jayelle of Brooklyn NY, about some hunting practices that IMHO are just the tiniest bit unfair, not to mention not very sporting. Now before anyone gets their panties in a knot, let me say I am an unashamed carnivore, or I suppose more accurately, omnivore. I have friends and neighbors who hunt deer and elk and stock their freezers to feed their family for the winter.

I say bravo, and that they are more honest eaters than I am, as the only hunting I do is for what’s on sale at our local grocery store. But this tale, from the bear centric area of New Hampshire smacks of unfairness to me. I mean, who doesn’t know that bears love sweets, and that chocolate can kill your dog if he eats enough of it. So, in the spirit of the Panda Chronicles, (meaning that we make fun of stuff, no matter how serious it actually is) here is our response to this story.

If I have but one life to live, let me give it for a cuppycake.

And now, as promised, Princess Pinky’s first response to the news that she did not win the gold medal in the Giant Panda Zoo Awards, (despite her…um…best efforts)

You might want to cover your ears.

Don’t tell me you’re surprised.

We’ll have more from our recorded coverage of the actual Giant Panda Awards ceremony, coming to you on The Panda Channel, host of Zoonooz, in the weeks to come. Stay tuned so you don’t miss it, or better yet, sign up to get new posts three times a week in your inbox. You can also sign up for our monthly (I swear I am going to get to this really soon) Newsletter. Both sign-ups are at the top of the right hand column on all pages, except for the home page.

Be the bear!
Bob T. Panda

Breathe Deeply! It’s Fabulous Furry Friday

14 Replies

I thought after Wednesday’s encounter with the panda kindergarten, Bob needed to chill to a bit and embrace his inner panda.

Nothing like a bit of the great outdoors to straighten up the panda kindergarten.

Just how hard would it be…

…to embrace your inner panda?

No cats were harmed in the drawing of this cartoon.

Be the Bear. Embrace your inner panda!
Bob T. Panda

You can bring a bear to culture…

4 Replies

…but you can’t make them behave themselves.

You know the old saying, you can bring a bear to culture, but you can’t make them learn the ancient rites of the tea ceremony, but that doesn’t stop Bob from trying to bring culture and refinement to the panda kindergarten. I can hardly write that last sentence without snorting and giggling madly. Some how, “culture and refinement” used in the same sentence as “panda kindergarten” invokes the image of merriment and …um…Meihem.

You can lead a bear to culture, but….

Hmmm…Bob will have to call on his inner panda to recover from this learning experience with the panda kindergarten. As you may have noticed, Pinky and the Meihems are now full members in good (or is that bad?) standing in the panda kindergarten. Pinky was a first round draft pick.

I can’t let the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday go by, without mentioning that it marks my 27th year of creative self employment. While I have had to be even more creative in the last six years in the making a living part, it has been an excellent ride, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, had the economy not gone sideways, panda satire might never have come into existence! And isn’t that a thought that would keep you up at night?

Keep Being the bear. I couldn’t do it without you.
Bob T. Panda

Pinky’s Snow Day; Part ‘C’

10 Replies

The liddle pandas have come in and hung up their coats, taken off their boots, and settled in for a little refreshment! What is a snow day without a steaming cup of cocoa?

Meanwhile, all seems to be quiet on the Northwestern front. Progress is being made on another pending project, The Panda Chronicles Cuppycake Cookbook: Favorite Recipes of the Panda Kindergarten. This is a project that has been in the works (between other projects) for a little over a year, with panda and panda satire aficionado Vicky Vladic, who hails from Australia. You can read more about her over at her blog, VSomethingSpeaks.

You might say that this collaboration is a child of the internet, since I have never been to Australia and I’m pretty sure she’s never been to the Pacific Northwest Washington State. We never would have met, let alone have an easy way to work on a project together, were it not for the world wide cyber living room, where you can find just about anything…even pandas! Stay tuned to this here site, if you like pandas and cuppycakes (and let’s face it, who doesn’t like frosting?)

But now, there are some pandas waiting!

Well, they did hang their coats up.

The way of the princess never runs smoothly.

Be the Bear,
Bob T. Panda

Fabulous, Furry, and Friday

4 Replies

What could be better? For those of you who are new in these here parts, Friday is the day we…um…relax a little bit and present a few pages from our vast archives of panda satire. But hmmmm…what to post, what to post…..?

Because I’m thinking about cupcakes…..

…because Babette hasn’t appeared lately

because…misery bear!!!!!

Friday is also the day we take the opportunity to remind you that you can have pandas at home…well, not real pandas of course, but the pandas of The Panda Chronicles are ready to step off the screen and into a book that you can hold in your very hands, and your purchase helps to support the art of Panda Satire. Huzzah for you!

For fans of Pandamorphosis, I’d like to remind you that you can find prints of some of the drawings from the book over at The Gratitude gallery of Fine Balance Imaging.

Who could resist pandas in the refrigerator?

Till next week,

Be the Bear
Bob T. Panda

Pinky’s Snow Day, Part the Second

15 Replies

After the events of last week in the rest of the world, is it any wonder that we sensitive types retreat to something a little kinder, a little gentler, and a little furrier? I am of course referring to Pinky’s first snow day. The joy of seeing this round, furry panda cub rolling down hills and romping with her mom is just what we needed to keep from crawling under the covers and never coming out. You can watch her on youtube here.

I hope that the violence and unrest that is happening in Paris settles down. The world seems to be going mad around us. We need more….

pandas.

Meihem, not Mayhem.

What could be cuter than pandas in snow suits? Yes, I know I need help.

Be the Bear,
Bob T. Panda

Pinky’s Snow Day, Part the First

14 Replies

Oh my, our most favorite panda princess has been all over the news, both in the US, but also in Canada, via a youtube video from The Smithsonian. A columnist in the Washingtonian dared to dis the snow covered panda, to the wrath of panda fans everywhere. How dare he say those things about Pinky!

I would never make fun of pandas like that.

I would do it like this:

And it was ever thus….

Stay tuned for more snowy-day fun on Wednesday!

Be the Bear,
Bob T. Panda

We’ll always have Paris…

10 Replies

Well, it is the first Fabulous Furry Friday of the year, but I feel like I need to take a moment for reflection on the essential nature of cartooning and satire, not to mention freedom of expression.

Yes, I am referring to the tragic events in Paris this week, when three radical extremists thought it was a good idea to invade a newspaper office and gun down 10 (or is it 15?- there were conflicting reports) of the writers, editors, and oh yes, cartoonists that wrote for the paper.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me all the time. But the nature of writing, making art, or making comics is essentially about telling one’s own truth. It’s about taking a hard and sometimes humorous look at things that make us uncomfortable. Personally, I mostly try to stay away from making fun of religion, not that it couldn’t use a poke in the side from time to time. I’ve seen some pretty funny comics that have skewered some aspect of the trappings of religion. But maybe I have a more well developed sense of self preservation than some people.

You should feel free to disagree with me or stop reading these cartoons if I’ve offended you. We might even have a civilized discussion on our differing points of view. It’s been known to happen, and the people with whom I’ve had these conversations feel closer and more real to me. I appreciate their willingness to discuss things rationally.

It sends a shiver of fear up my spine when I remember that there are those in the world who think that differing philosophies dishonor their beliefs, and that that is punishable by death.

I thought about what cartoon would honor those who died this week for exercising their right to free speech and I couldn’t think of one that I had done that would fit that bill.

So I thought a better idea would be to do what I do best, and make you laugh.

pass the cookies, okay?

well, if I can’t carry it through security, can I eat it now?

Who says real life can’t be funny?

Be kind, be true to yourself, but most importantly, be the bear. We’ll always have Paris.
Bob T. Panda