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.
Hey! it’s Earth Day! Could it possibly be the 51st anniversary of the very first Earth Day? I think it could be, and if I told you how old I was when the first Earth Day happened, you would know that I’m old! But I’m not going to tell you that. Suffice it to say, that I was there when it happened!
We’ve come a long way since then, and not especially in a good way. But here we are still. Pandas have always been aware that we have to take care of the planet. And to take care of the planet, we have to take care of pandas! At least I’m pretty sure that is a major goal of Earth Day!
But meanwhile, Pinky’s dream is mebbee about to turn into a nightmare!
Cut to Mei Xiang, drinking a bootini and quietly chortling to herself…
What will Pinky find when she returns to the Panda House? Stay tuned till next week and find out!
It is such a wonderful thing to have furry inhabitants in the White House again. (Stephen Miller, who seems to be some variety of lizard, doesn’t count) But it not been all rawhide chews and squeaky toys for the canine cohorts of the West Wing! There have been *incidents*!
And weren’t we promised a White House cat? (Please don’t name it Mittens!!!)
It’s all fun and games till someone poos on the Oval Office carpet!
It feels like spring today (despite the fact that I just woke up from a nap!) and now as the days get longer, I can still go outside!
So here is a little random collection, of ‘toons through the years that I have done in the spring. Do I have a theme? Um…not really! I’m just going to rummage through the ‘toons and see what amuses me today. I hope it amuses you too!
Naughty bear or cuddly menace? You be the judge!I am only making some of this up. Perhaps a THIRD chance is in order?Never underestimate the power of a good “fart joke”
It must almost be time to select the Torch Bears for the next Olympic Games!!!
So much for those new navigation systems…or is it “nagagation systems”?
My recent operating system upgrade and new printer brought along another round of technical difficulties!
Lamentations of Luddites lay waste to Linguini. Did I just see what I thought I saw?
So, back in the real world, Princess Pinky Bao Bao lives in China, and she has had a cub. We don’t know exactly why her cub is being raised by a foster mother, but she seems very well cared for and lives a happy cubby life. But in the world of The Panda Chronicles, all the pandas live at home with their parents… And Ping… And Frank and Mikey…
It’s getting a bit crowded in the panda house!
But that’s all to the good, for all the story possibilities that go along with a large cast of characters! (And that doesn’t include when Lun Lun sends all the girls up to visit their aunt and cousins!)
But the idea of Pinky having a cubby was too good to ignore, and so, we are having another one of those dream sequence thingies, which hopefully everyone will wake up from! As Mommee Mei says….
“Someday you’ll have a cubby just like you, Miss Pinky Bao Bao!!”
Yes, it’s another Panda Chronicle exclusive fantasy story!
Where is this story headed? Well, to be honest, I really don’t know! I think you can be sure there will be some payback for Princess Pinky!
So, my post on Thursday dealt with zoo keepers at a Czech zoo giving their chimpanzees access to Zoom so that they wouldn’t feel so lonely during the pandemic shut down. And then THIS happens! Do we think that there was a diabolical plot hatched between the Czech Chimps and these Barbary apes in Germany? And what about these monkeys in Cincinnati???
I don’t know about you, but this seems awfully suspicious to me! Therefore, today’s ‘toon round up is all about wild animals behaving…um…badly! (mebbee!)
The secret lives of the wild panda!What goes around, comes around.You just can’t trust crocodiles.Ooooooo-oooo-oooo-we have food tonight…Here kitty kitty…nice kitty…“We just want to talk!”
Yes, we are all chomping at the bit to get back to real life with real people (or maybe not! Some of us have realized that not interacting in person is not all bad!) But why should people have all the Zooms?A Czech zoo decided to give it’s inhabitants a treat. And what penguin wouldn’t want to get a little culture?
I hope the penguins remembered to take all their fish with them!
Still finding work arounds for all my technical difficulties. I just updated my operating system and now my scanner doesn’t want to work. Uh oh. I am getting the “offline” notice again, which is always encouraging. (not)
Anyway, fortunately I have this week and next week’s ‘toons scanned so I have a bit of time to figure this out!
Here’s today’s ‘toon!
The idiocy of the GOP never ceases to amaze me.
Meanwhile, I am reading about Minch McTurtle’s feud with corporations. I guess it’s okay to take money from them, as long as they don’t contradict you? IDK.
Till later, Call the Panda Kindergarten tech team!
Some comics let their characters age, grow, get old disappear, add new characters as the older characters end their story lines. Some comics keep their characters in a state of suspended animation. Calvin remained six for all 10 years of Calvin and Hobbes. I’ve done a bit of the combination of the two, freezing characters at the age that is most conducive to the story lines that I have created.
Pandas come, and sometimes they go (Yun Zi, who really only appeared as a foil to young Mr. Wu, left for China as part of a story line) but mostly, I’ve left Princess Pinky, Bubba, the Meihems, and Six and Sebben as perennial pre-teens because that’s where my mind finds the most fertile story telling. And of course now there is Bikkie!
But now that the real life Pinky Boo Boo has had a cubby, it is very enticing to imagine that Pinky will now be on the receiving end of everything she has put her mother through. But I’m not ready to give up on Pinky as a small panda princess, intent on world domination. Therefore, I’m working on one of those dream sequence story lines, where for now, Pinky and Pinky Junior will exist only in Pinky’s dreams, at least for now!
So, let’s remember everything we love about Pinky! #Clap Louder!
Princess Pinky and her very first tutu, gifted to her by her big brother Tai Shan!Pinky is VERY powerful. Be afraid, be very afraid, Mr Wu.You say you want a resolution, well, you know, it is hard to change a bear….Could Mama Mei Xiang really be contemplating letting Pinky loose on the pandy kindy?Never say “No” to a Pinky!A tiskitt a taskitt , a great big wheelie basket!
Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope it was a happy one!
While it is a relief to have someone I can call “President” unironically, I still am traumatized enough by my memories of the former guy that every time I hear a phrase that includes “The White House” or “POTUS” I have a momentary flood of dread until I remember that Joe Biden is President and that he is doing what needs to be done to get this country back on track.
That all is not well, that Asian Americans are being targeted and attacked, that a 17 year old girl had the courage and foresight to film a police attack on an unarmed man, I still can’t rest easily.
But we have survived another month! More people are getting vaccinated and I will hold onto the hope that gives me. I really hope I can visit Bikkie and his parents this fall. That is just one of my hopes.
Meanwhile, Bob and Mehitabel try to figure out what’s real and what’s an April Fools Joke!
Poor Bob! What do you do when every thing that’s true seems like a prank?
Can we skip the April Showers and go straight to the flowers?
