The current issue of “The Hippo” carries my diary strip from last week’s infamous Ice Storm of 2008!

The beaver provide ONE example of animals active on that icy, moonlit, unelectrical night… We also scared a big porcupine up a tree in a swamp, and saw evidence of plenty of gas-powered storm cleanup, too.

We went to a fun Northern New England Cartoonists party last night…

That’s Peter Noonan, yours truly, Stephanie Piro, and Denise! (Denise is patiently and helpfully restraining my hands, which tend to spring up and make little “Hey there!” pistol shapes whenever I feel a camera focusing on us… ) This photo comes from Mike Lynch’s documentation of the event.

And speaking of partying hard…

It looks like Mei-Mei had a really wild Friday night.

… and I don’t mean cartoon animals! I found this great Fresh Air interview with Irene Pepperberg, all about her pet parrot Alex. Alex could talk, count, recognize shapes, materials, colors, even absences…

Here’s Alex at work:

One of the main educational models Pepperberg describes is the “Mock Rival” method, where two researchers play off each other to Continue Reading »

I don’t usually do this, but as I drew the latest episode of Mimi’s Doughnuts I heard some little alarm bells going off in my head, so I went back and redrew some of the strip. I’ll post the self-censored panel here, as I’m interested to hear some reactions to it:
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Tags: censorship, Islam, racism, Sluglock Holmes, spoof

I drew this mini-comic during last week’s Comics Camp at The Orchard School, up on Orchard Hill in East Alstead, NH. Kody and Otis were the resident elder dogs when I lived at Orchard Hill around the turn of the century. It was great to be back on Orchard Hill, remembering all the adventures Kody and Otis used to have… Continue Reading »

I was so happy to finish my zine for Teen Zine Week and bring it home tonight. It’s a new edition of the Henniker*Star, similar to past editions, but eight whole pages long! It’s also the perfect size for a cat to read, and most of the articles… nay, ALL the articles are tailored to a feline audience. (It has a lot of news about the ongoing cat elections, for example.)

I showed the cat newspaper to Penny. At first, it was kind of hard to get her attention…

But once she saw an article about her own catpaign for Cat President, she was hooked:

Now she’s a regular reader!

Well, just when you thought the cat elections’ primary season was all over, guess who’s up to her old tricks?

That’s right, Maggie is back in the public eye this week with the launch of her new fashion accessory line. (She and Denise just finished a photo-shoot in our kitchen.)
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That’s a little teaser panel from my submission to Cat Garza’s Secrets and Lies anthology, which debuts at the MoCCA ArtFest in New York this June.

I’ll be at MoCCA, too, at table #A36 with Dan Barlow and the rest of the Trees and Hills gang. (Read all about it here.) It’s still almost a month away, but I’m already getting psyched!!!!

Oh, no, wait… maybe I’m just getting over-tired. It must be time for bed.

Woo! Exciting! I went to Massachusetts this week to meet (and train) with the Unlocking The Light program (UTL), which is part of the super-inspiring Hampshire Educational Collaborative.

UTL provides on-the-job professional development in arts integration for teachers in the Massachusetts state juvenile justice system, or DYS (Department of Youth Services). They service 1500 (incarcerated) students and 200 teachers in 58 facilities around the state.

“Wait, Marek,” you’re thinking, “How do YOU fit into that?” Continue Reading »

Just some odds and ends for today:

• Octopi from Jon-Mikel… with links to amazing video. I love to see natural beasts who have Hollywood totally beat. (Note especially the shape-shifting octopus, the texture-shifting octopus, and the color-flashing cuttlefish, starting about 1:15 into the awesome beast video!
• Creepy jiggling sacks of reanimated flesh… rat-heart-style! This is probably one of those science projects where you wake up the next morning thinking, “Oh god, why did we do that?”
• And yes, finally, they’re going to start feeding you clones. And it’s illegal to tell you so on the label. Why? Because it you might not want to buy food that says, “Contains clone-meat”, that’s why. I love the logic of our food system. If you’re not a vegetarian or local carnivore now, you might want to consider it.

Good night!