All bears, Fat or otherwise, are on the move! Pinky is almost at the zoo, if she can just lose her police escort…Wasn’t it nice of Mittens to leave a bunch of really fast cars just idling by the train station so that Pinky didn’t need to hail a cab to get to the zoo to visit Binky Li!
Frank and Mikey have found an RV and are making tracks up to the annual Festival of Fat Bears up in Katmai National Park in Alaska. I sure hope it goes better than last year!
And Binky Li, QB, and Ping are waiting in the kitchen of the Panda House for Pinky to arrive….
I feel like breaking into a chorus of “Bears on the Run!“
Things are getting worse and worse in our Nation’s capitol, but as long as we have bears, we might make it through!
Be the Bear Bob T I’m trying not to think too much about it Panda
Stories have a way of regenerating as new s**t comes to light! But for now, we are going to call this story done, with this episode.
So Let’s get to it!
It looks like Bikkie made a new friend! Call the building contractor, Tian! We might need to make an addition on to Bikkie’s room. And who does this cub belong to? I guess we’ll find out eventually.
A Little Bit About My Process:
Some stories start with an idea that is floating around on the internet. These nooz stories enter my brain, slosh around a bit, colliding with existing characters, melding with preconceived ideas, and finally plooping out onto the page.
For instance: Where did Frank and Mikey come from?
In the fall of 2018, when it became apparent the the current SCOTUS nominee was even more awful than we thought he was, the thought crossed my mind, wouldn’t it be funny if he was eaten by bears on the steps of the Supreme Court?
Naturally, Mehitabel (being the savvy journalist that she is,) invited the bears for an interview on ZooNooZ. To be completely candid, their personalities emerged with little intervention from me. Honestly, sometimes I think I am merely a conduit through which the various cats, pandas, and other animals that appear in these pages, and speak their own thoughts.
Once here, I could not get the bears to leave, despite very pointed glares coming from Mei Xiang as she dealt with her ever expanding household.
And so it is with all the other characters. Sometimes, they don’t have much to say to me, so I let them just wander around in the background, until they have pressing business with me.
Process:
For those who might be interested, here is how my ‘toons come into being:
Idea > scribbled post it note > write script, seeing if I can fit the action/dialog/cast into a 4 panel strip > rough pencil sketch in my sketchbook to figure out layout > light editing of placement, text > redraw the toon on smooth Bristol paper > ink in panel lines > ink in text> ink in all characters > erase pencil lines when dry > Scan > clean up scan in photo editing program > post on The Panda Chronicles
Whew!
Be the Bear Bob T I have no classified documents Panda
