Category Archives: the essential pandaness of being

Selfies With Pandas

I gave up watching TV more than 15 years ago, and quit reading newspapers some years earlier. (After Bill Watterson retired, what was the point?)  But here at The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire, we are not totally uninformed. We listen to NPR (National Panda Radio), read The New Yorker* and the Atlantic Magazine. But our favorite source for Nooz Pandas Can Use is the NPR show,  Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

* sometimes we even read the articles.

Yesterday, as I was driving around in the cubvertable, one Wait, Wait… segment related a story about how the state of New York was considering (or had already) outlawed the practice of taking selfies with tigers. Now, this story raised many questions, that we felt were not adequately addressed on the show.  (We thought about going back and listening to the podcast to see if we had our facts straight, but then we thought, hey! We’re pandas! Since when have we concerned ourself with the facts?)

First, are tiger selfies really such a big problem? and what about enforcement of the new statute? Are they going to staff zoos and other places that tigers congregate to make sure no one takes a selfie with the tigers.  Do the tigers get any say in this?

Needless to say, The Institute for Contemporary Panda Satire has not shirked their responsibility to fully explore this issue.

Much better to take a selfie with pandas!

Much better to take a selfie with pandas!

Don’t forget to check out pandas around the web!
Kirby Larson’s Kirby’s Lane: Friday June 13, 2014
June 9th on Cordelia Calls it Quits, and
June 11th on Cordelia’s Mom, Still

Pandamorphosis was reviewed by Henry Nicholls, author of The Way of the Panda, on his Animal Magic blog at The  Guardian.

Be the Bear!
Bob T. Panda

 

Where in the World…

…are Princess Pinky and the Mei-hem Twins?  Thats what enquiring minds keep asking me. I’m afraid I have been just the teensiest bit irresponsible (do ya think???) to let the girls go off across the country in the Cublanta Twins’ little yellow cubvertible without any supervision.

What was I thinking?

But we have addressed the manner in the most responsible and expedient way possible by devoting the latest edition of ZooNooZ to an in depth look at this crisis.

Uh oh...mad mom alert....

Uh oh…mad mom alert….

So where in the world are they?…um…your guess is as good as mine! (See helpful map!)

A heads up for Wednesday: I have a special guest blogger who will be virtually visiting me here at The Panda Chronicles!  Writer C. Hope Clark, author of The Carolina Slade mystery series and grand poobah of the extremely popular and useful Funds for Writers website. She offered to share a guest post here as I celebrate the launch of Pandamorphosis into the world. I’m thrilled to have her here, as she talks about finding and following our childhood wishes and dreams.

Till then,
Be the Bear!
Bob T. Panda

 

What Kind of Cuppycake are You?

Alert reader Marie Lamb sent me this quiz via fezbook, because as a loyal reader of The Panda Chronicles, she knows that cuppycakes are near and dear to all the pandas here. Of course it inspired a cartoon.  How could it not?

I have extra frosting!

I have extra frosting!

(By the way, when I took the quiz, it turns out that I am a lemon cuppycake)

Sigh….

Be the Bear
Bob T. Panda

Another Fabulous Furry Friday

Ah, what to post, what to post…that is the question.  Time to get out the darts and throw it at my computer screen and see where it sticks.

pandas in the laboratory

Can you calibrate the cuppycake?

I am such a dork.

I am such a dork.

I know… I will take this opportunity to share these cartoons I did for Pandas International, for their programs at several of their annual auction events.  If you don’t already know about Pandas International,  you might want to check them out and send a little support their way.  They raise money to help actual pandas (as opposed to imaginary ones) and… without actual pandas, there could be no panda satire.

Think about that!

Keep being the Bear!
Bob T. Panda

Road Trip

Oh my, I am an irresponsible panda satirist.  Here I sent Pinky and the Mei-hem twins, Bert and Ernie, off on a road trip in the little yellow car to see Mr. Wu (clear on the other side of the country) and have we looked in on them since they zoomed off, leaving Mei Xiang in a cloud of dust? No we have not! (And then we wrote that terrible run on sentence…what were we thinking?)

Fortunately, thanks to GPPS (Global Panda Positioning Satellite) we have located the girls who are not quite to Pan Diego as yet.

One of the little known wonders of the world.

One of the little known wonders of the world.

On the road again….

Be the Bear
Bob T. Panda

 

Do Vampire Pandas Exist?

We don’t know for sure, but there have been rumors of a community of vampire pandas circulating around the internet.  Where are these vile rumors coming from? Hmmm… I have no idea.

Evidence of a vampire panda infestation primarily consists of a number of tubes of frosting with fang marks in them, with all the frosting being slurped out.

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

This is very scary, don't you think?

This is very scary, don’t you think?

This cartoon is posted by request of Vicky V., who knows something about frosting as well as vampires.

Be the Bear

Bob T. Panda

Even More from the Panda Season of Love

Last week one of my esteemed readers commented on this post of the day of “Z” with a delightful scenario based on ACTUAL PANDA COMMUNICATION from our panda neighbors to the North, Er Shun and Da Mao, currently residing in Toronto as part of the “putting pandas to work” program.

News item: Gao Gao, the San Diego zoo stud muffin and father of five, is recovering from surgery of *ahem* a delicate nature. For more information, read the San Diego Zoo blog.

Of course, this inspired me to write a cartoon, which would make even more fun of pandas (well, boy pandas anyway). Sometimes they just make it too easy for me.

I smell frosting!

I smell frosting!

If YOU have read a real news story that you think that pandas would enjoy having their way with, just send it on in a comment. don’t worry about trying to figure out what the pandas will have to say about it.  We might not even comment on the story directly, but you never know what is going to trigger some panda satirical thought in my fuzzy little head. Operators are standing by to take your call.

fundraising on Kickstarter

Ha ha! George Clooney… where do those little pandas get these ideas?

Politicians misbehaving? strange cuppycake vending machines showing up on your block? Interesting trends in fashion?  Pandas may be interested.

Be the Bear
and
Panda On

Bob T. panda

 

More from the Panda Season of Lo-o-o-o-ove

Over the river, through the woods and across the Atlantic we go, to visit some of our favorite pandas, those titans of the tartan, the Scottish Pandas, Lord and Lady MacBear. I just can’t get enough of these guys.  And lest you be concerned that Mehitabel has been beset by bratty panda kindergarteners during the running of the pandas, she gets her own back today, as she pokes fun at the technique (or lack thereof) of boy pandas everywhere.

I just love the cub reporter.

I just love the cub reporter.

Hope that you are having a happy Sunday, sitting around reading the sunday funnies with your panda, perhaps enjoying a cuppycake or two. (Or three)

Keep being the bear and Pandaing on!  There are pandas around the web this week as I pay a return visit to Cordelia’s Mom, Still on Thursday, May 8th with a post about continuing onward despite all the adversity that life throughs at us, and TOMORROW I appear on The Isle of the Arts show on Whidbey Air radio at 1PM PDST to talk about Kickstarter. (This is a return engagement, due to my recent bout of spring cold last week.)  News flash: Apologies, but this is being postponed once again. (not my fault this time.)  I will alert you when it is REALLY happening.

Huzzah!

Huzzah!

Panda On!
Bob T. Panda

 

X marks the spot

What X-citement we have had the month! Despite the X-erable weather and heck…I can’t hardly find any words that start with X without cheating. X-scuses, X-scuses…

Meanwhile, we are recovering from our X-hausting bout with yet another version of this winter’s cold and flu season.  On Wednesday we will be back with a new cartoon (a REALLY new cartoon!) and hopefully, we will resume our normal schedule of a new cartoon every Sunday and Wednesday, as well as an “encore presentation” for Fabulous Furry Fridays.

Thank you to all the A to Z-ers who came to visit this month.  I hope you will stick around and say hi from time to time.  There are some new blogs that I am now following, as well as a couple that I already followed.  Posting daily did not give me as much time as I had hoped for visiting other blogs, but with the list still accessible (yes?) I hope to rectify that situation.

And now, here are some X-cellent encore presentations.  (I’m X-cited about tomorrow, Y? Because, duh, Panda Yoga, hello?)

hey, are dere any more cuppycakes?

X-cessively bad taste

Mr Wu tries to take charge

X-treme jealousy

mr wu speaks out.

X-treme angst

And to all you folks out there that are thinking of launching your own crowdfunding project out there in the real world, my radio interview on Whidbey Air got rescheduled to next week, due to my sore throat and fever that I was X-periencing this weekend.  I’ll post the link here next Sunday so you can tune in, because it gonna be LIVE!!! See ya then!

Be the Bear
Bob T. Panda

It’s P-P-P-P-Panda day!

I have been waiting
so.
very.
long….

for today…this peripatetic population of pandas, these paragons of pageantry, pandas at parties, pandas in pairs, panda panda panda! Pandas with their palpable need to pampered, pandas in pursuit of pomp, pandas having pancakes while participating in panicked  PANDAMONIUM!!!!!

Here come the pandas!

What’s a little pandamonium among friends?

Princess Pinky, that paradigm of >Poof< , never paranoid nor parochial, permanently partaking of pop-overs, pretty as a picture.

Pandas….brought to you by the letter”P”

Never say "No" to a Pinky!

Never say “No” to a Pinky!

Pairs of pandas in pajamas…

Atlanta Twins have a fight

Sweet dreams, little bears! (editors note, this cartoon was drawn before Pinky poofed the Cublanta twins and turned them into girls.)

…pandas partaking in pursuits of the poetical….

panda poetry slam

The cake abides….

and last, but hardly least, perky panda pirates!

An explorer's work is never done.

An explorer’s work is never done.

Thanks again to the A to Z for hosting this monthlong panda-thon, not to mention Cordelia’s Mom, Still for inviting  the pandas over for a guest post.  (I swear I’ll have the carpets cleaned. Sorry about all that frosting and the picture window.)

And have I mentioned that “P” also stands for Pandamorphosis?  Just sayin. (stay tuned for news as it appears!)

Keep Being the Bears!
Bob T. Panda