Giant Panda

Officially speaking, there's no such thing as a panda.  The animal that you were certainly picturing when I blew your mind just then is actually known as the "giant panda."  Giant?  Really?  I mean, granted... they're pretty big.  It would take a few minutes and some clever packing to squeeze one into your carry-on, but "giant" may be a bit of an over-sell for a bear that tops out at between 200 and 250 pounds.  That weight range may qualify something to be a giant chipmunk, a giant toad, or a giant bacon cheeseburger, but we're talking about a bear here.  For the sake of comparison, the Kodiak bear can weigh up to 1,500 pounds, and that's just the basic, non-giant Kodiak.  I feel like we're potentially disappointing zoo-goers and cheapening the word "giant" with this misleading terminology.  It's troubling.

I did a little research into the matter and learned that the term "giant panda" is meant to distinguish this bear from the completely non-related red panda.  Non-related?  Why did we use the word "panda" for two non-related animals?  Was every other possible word already taken?  Because I just Googled "shormshoo" and nothing came up.  It's not being used for anything.  And there are hundreds of other words just like it that, though stupid, could easily be attached to something like a reddish, raccoon-sized thing or a not-so-giant bear.  Non-related animals should have non-related names.

I don't mean to suggest that we should start randomly changing the established names of existing animals.  That would get confusing.  Obviously the better solution is to force the world's entire populations of giant pandas and red pandas into a coliseum-style battle to the death... the winning species becoming the sole heir of the coveted title of "panda."  If you're the gambling type, you would be wise to bet against the little red raccoons, because these bears are freaking giants!

Evolution's Next Step

You may have noticed that my blog has been fairly dormant for quite some time.  Perhaps you assumed that I had given up on blogging or that some grudge-holding killer whale had murdered me in my sleep, but no… I’m still here.  I’ve actually been working on something that ended up taking a lot more time than you’d think it would:  evolution.

It all began with a simple question:  What would happen if a bear was bred with a shark?  Great white bear?  Grizzly shark?  In a perfect world, one of those would certainly be the result, but trying to get a bear and a shark to breed posed a set of problems I wasn’t prepared to deal with and led to the deaths of at least seven unpaid, entry-level interns.

I recently came to the life-altering realization that breeding two animals together causes you to effectively forfeit half of each animal.  How do you know which elements of which animal your final product will exhibit?  I could end up with a grizzly shark that only has a single row of flesh-tearing teeth or a great white bear without its signature, flesh-tearing claws?  Why lose elements of each animal when you could just tape the two of them together and keep all parts of both?  It's simple, common sense!  And as long as we’re taping animals together, why stop at just a bear and a shark?

This new, advanced creature I’m developing is not completely free of problems.  For instance, how does it get around?  Does it swim?  Does it fly?  If it’s going to fly, I’m going to need to tape a penguin to it… and also tape the penguin to some kind of flying bird.  This creature is going to happen, though, and when it does, you’ll remember that you heard about it here first!  And YOU can be a part of it!  I’m currently hiring interns… no experience or expectations of payment necessary.

Shark Anatomy

Shark experts commonly insist that sharks don't target humans or even want to eat us.  I guess that's kind of comforting... until you're watching Shark Week and a great white repeatedly attacks a camera, some steel beams, and a Styrofoam seal. Did he want to eat that stuff?  I can't imagine any of those items were seal-flavored, yet that shark kept returning to bite them again and again.

The truth is that sharks will eat anything they find in the ocean, so if you're a thing in the ocean, a shark will eat you.  As it turns out, they're not all that discriminatory when it comes to what they will or won't eat, so don't try to comfort me by pointing out that I'm not a shark's preferred meal or that I'm not the delicious sea creature he's mistaken me for.  Hearing that a shark doesn't want to eat me is as comforting as hearing that a tornado doesn't want to destroy my house.

I want to be a shark expert... and looking at this diagram, I guess it's pretty obvious that I kind of already am.

Chocolate Bunny

Chocolate fondue bunnies?! Cute, right? I originally considered drawing a cheerful predator of some kind dipping a chick in a vat of melted marshmallow to make Peeps, but that one seemed like a stretch, mostly because I can't get by the fact that Peeps look more like elephant seals than they look like chicks, and an Easter drawing of an elephant seal getting dipped in marshmallow seemed especially confusing. That's more of a "Labor Day" thing.

Happy Easter once again, everybody!

Greatest Hits

You know how sometimes a band will disappear for a couple of years, and then they suddenly return with a "Greatest Hits" album and a reunion tour so they can get some more of your money without producing anything new? Well, as you may have noticed, it's been five months since I updated my blog... so I made this. Please send me your money.

Bunnies Love Bears

I know it's only October, but I finished this already, so I might as well post it. Happy Easter, everybody!

Motivationally Couraged

The only thing a motivational poster has ever motivated me to do is "stop reading motivational posters." It is my hope that these two posters will inspire you to do the same. I doubt you'll learn much about "courage" from these things. The one thing I do expect you to learn is that there are scary things on the right side of yellow grass fields, so if you find yourself in such a place, then for goodness sake... run left!

Chumming for Humans

In August of 2008, our bathroom scale accused me of weighing in at a hefty 255 pounds. As of this morning of 2011, I was down to 175 pounds, meaning I've lost 80 pounds in just three years. Fairly impressive, I guess, especially when you consider that I did it the old-fashioned, unpleasant way: eating sensibly and exercising.

While watching a series of Discovery Channel documentaries recently as part of the annual celebration of my favorite religious holiday, Shark Week, I realized there's a much easier way to lose a lot of weight in a fraction of the time with only minimal effort... shark attack! I could kick myself! How did I not see this before?! Think of all the exercise I could have avoided and the cookie dough I might have enjoyed if I had only considered the permanent kind of weight-loss you can only get from being the victim of a shark attack.

What does a leg weigh? Twenty? Thirty pounds? Why, you could lose that in just a few minutes of surfing in murky water while the sun sets. Under this new weight-loss program I'm developing, you could eat whatever you want to and still lose weight! In fact, the more bacon cheeseburgers and double fudge brownies you consume, the more likely you are to be mistaken for an elephant seal, and therefore, the more likely you are to be selected as a candidate for sudden, oceanic weight loss. (That's what I'm calling it, as "shark attack" turns a lot of people away before they've even given it a chance).

As long as you're still agile enough to wiggle your way down the beach and roll your giant body into the surf, I think "sudden, oceanic weight loss" may be for you! After all, it's less painful than diet and exercise.

Although it's been said many times, many ways... "Happy Shark Week to you!"

Pigs are Pigs

Pigs are omnivorous, which means they'll eat anything... fruits, vegetables, hamburgers, soup, grass, VHS tapes, goats... anything you can think of. A pig would eat an airplane if he had the time for it. A pig would eat 62 hot dogs in ten minutes if it would get him on TV. A pig would even eat you if I needed to eliminate incriminating evidence after hitting you with my car (but I'm a better driver than that, so relax). Because pigs will eat anything they can get their snouts on, they have even occasionally been known to eat each other... which is gross. Then again, if any animal can be excused for exhibiting cannibalistic tendencies, it's a pig. Certainly they too must know what the inclusion of bacon does to a cheeseburger. So whatever it is pigs are eating, whether it be moldy bread, gum wrappers, Cajun shrimp, or each other, I hope they keep it up, because those things they're eating are the recipe for bacon. If "other pigs" is a necessary ingredient, then by all means, cannibalize away, you disgusting pigs! These arteries aren't going to clog themselves!

Cars 2: The Video Game

Here are some storyboards I did for the Cars 2 video game. They're out of order and out of context, so don't expect to get much from them. Don't expect to see the movies they helped create in all of their fully-animated grandeur either. Unfortunately, every scene I boarded for the game got cut. Take that, me! The game's a lot of fun, though, so go buy it. And if you don't play video games in your home, please send the money you would have spent on the game directly to me. I'll know what to do with it.

Flying Giraffe

As I sat down to draw this, I thought, "A flying giraffe... there's something new." It wasn't until after I'd drawn it, colored it, and given the sketch away to one of my Facebook fans that I started wondering just how original the concept of a flying giraffe was. I Googled it and found 1,260,000 other flying giraffes... so, not quite as original as I had hoped. At that point, I couldn't help but wonder how many non-flying giraffe images Google would find, so I did a second search for the simpler, more conventional "giraffe." That one yielded 2,430,000 images. So it turns out that only about one-in-three of the internet's giraffe population is capable of flight... which I'm pretty sure is the actual percentage you would find if you just went outside and looked around.

Hooray for Moms!

I've been a dad for a few years now, and I've learned a lot of things about raising kids, the most profound of which is that, on my best day, I'm passably decent at it. I guess I do all right compared to some delinquent fathers, but I'm not even close to being the best parent in our house. This is probably true in most homes, because let's face it, moms are better than dads at about everything. Like when my daughter was coming around the corner and bumped her hand on the wall... my wife immediately gave her a hug and asked her if she was all right. What?! Where does she get this stuff? All I could think of to do in that situation was say, "I'm just glad you're still alive enough to cry about it." I've found that dads aren't generally very compassionate... at least not in our house.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms out there... especially my favorite moms, which includes my wife, my mom, my mother-in-law, my sisters, my sisters-in-law, my step mom, my grandmas, my grandma-in-law, my aunts, my cousins, my cousins' wives, all the moms who read my blog or are my Facebook fans, all the moms who are currently reading this or having it read to them because they like pictures but can't read, and any of you who aren't moms but someday will be or would be if you could be. Hooray for you! You're making our lives seem bearable on days when we know they really aren't. Thanks for all you do... and Happy Mother's Day!

Easter Dinner

I've never tasted rabbit before, but thanks to years of cartoon-watching, and based on the opinions of Wile E. Coyote, Brer Fox, and whoever ended up eating Roger Rabbit, I have plenty of reason to believe that, of all the animals that talk, walk around on their hind legs, and occasionally wear clothes, rabbits are probably the most delicious.

If you find this picture upsetting, allow me to share a few facts that may offer you some much-needed peace of mind. First of all, this is a drawing, so no one's really going to be eaten... unless I draw someone being eaten... which I probably will. Second, the Easter Bunny probably has some kind of magic wand that allows him to leave eggs and candy all over everyone's houses in a single night, and he could easily use that wand to light a fox on fire if he felt his life was threatened. And third, the Easter Bunny is already dead.

If you're still feeling uneasy, consider one other thing. The peace you were experiencing before seeing this picture was only a pretended peace... the result of your own misguided ignorance. Foxes eat rabbits every day. I'm sure it's happening somewhere right now. The circle of life is spinning out of control just beyond your door at this very moment whether you like it or not, so just be glad that I didn't draw baby chicks in that frying pan like I had originally planned to.

Happy Easter, everybody!

Jumping the Shark

This drawing was inspired by an episode of Happy Days, a little known television series that served as a springboard for the mega-hit, Joanie Loves Chachi. In September of 1977, Happy Days' Cunninghams took an infamous trip to the beach. While they were there, among other riveting plot lines, Arthur (a.k.a. "Fonzie") was challenged by a bunch of beach-toughs to water-ski off of a jump that led directly over some stock footage of a variety of deadly sharks. Having roughed up a jukebox prior to their vacation, the Fonz was feeling pretty brave, so he succumbed to the prodding of the beach boys (probably not the ones you're thinking of), suited up in his leather jacket and his finest denim cut-offs, and did the dumbest thing anyone on that beach or in their living rooms had ever seen... he jumped the shark.

This episode of Happy Days undoubtedly won several Emmy Awards, but that's not its only accomplishment. It also established a phrase that has come to signify that a show is out of good storylines and has most likely run its course: "jumping the shark." For example, Scooby Doo jumped the shark when Scrappy Doo showed up, The Brady Bunch jumped the shark when the lady met this fellow, and Flipper jumped the shark when he and Bud inadvertently swam into shark-infested waters... though that last one was more of a literal shark-jumping and was actually kind of heroic.

Anything can jump the shark... a TV series, a relationship, a greaser in a leather jacket and never-nude cut-offs, or even a blog. This blog jumped the shark when I became obsessed with animal jug bands, and this blog post jumped the shark when I mentioned Joanie Loves Chachi. She does, though.

Banjo-Strummin' Pig

For the last couple of years I've had the pleasure of being obsessed with animals playing banjos, corn jugs, washboards, and washtubs. If you've browsed this blog at all, you already know that. The good news is I'm not alone! At least not about the "banjo" part. Did you know there's a whole blog dedicated to banjo-playing pigs? It's true! Wonderfully true! We're all very fortunate that the internet didn't fill up before this happened.

Jug Band O' Birds

Humans hate birds. When we’re not shooting them, eating them, or chasing them into the sky to dice them with our airplane engines, we’re making up phrases that highlight how lame we think they are. For instance, something that is foolish or ridiculous can be classified as “for the birds,” someone who’s not very bright may be called “bird brained,” “killing two birds with one stone” is a bird-hating substitute for the term "multi-tasking," and if you mention to someone with a gentle honk that their texting is putting your life in danger, they will almost always thank you for your courteous warning by “flipping the bird.”

As if threatening and insulting the entire bird population with phrases like these isn’t enough, consider the negative connotations that are associated with individual types of birds... like chickens, turkeys, loons, cuckoos, dodos, stool pigeons, silly geese, and lame ducks. No one wants to be called bird names. That's mean... and it's not 1955.

Are birds doomed to be loathed by mankind forever? As long as we're using phrases like "a bird in the hand is worth squeezing to death," it appears so. Which reminds me... please start using that phrase.

Chuckle-to-Yourself Cats

It's not often that I create fan art... especially fan art that openly mocks the thing I'm a fan of... but I decided to try it this once. These cats are based on my good friend Adam Koford's Laugh-Out-Loud Cats. Adam and I shared an office here at Avalanche for a few years before he was moved to another office last week to focus on another project. He's a funny man and an easy guy to share an office with, and I'm happy to say that his pleasant demeanor is as inoffensive as his scent.

I've shared offices with a bunch of guys in recent years, and while all of them have been subject to my interesting assortment of music, only most of them complained about it. I probably should honor all of them with fan art, but instead of that, I'll just post links to their blogs, a few of which have been updated in the last year. This is a good group of guys... some of my best friends. Many thanks to all of them for making "work" seem like "a little better than work."

• Kelly Loosli
• Seth Hippen
• Adrian Ropp
• Bryan Lefler
• Trent Halvorsen
• Adam Koford

Free Gift

There's so much that I love about Christmas... the music, the lights, the food, the tree in our living room, the TV specials and movies, the day off of work, the Carpenters. But I think what I love most about Christmas is that it's yet another day of the year that we don't have a cat.

Merry Christmas, y'all, and y'all a good night!

The Hap-Happiest Season of All

In 1963, Andy Williams released a song that has become a holiday classic: “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Since then it has also been recorded by Johnny Mathis, Harry Connick Jr., Amy Grant, the Muppets, and a bunch of other people who we forget exist the other eleven months of the year. What I find most surprising about this song is that, as many times as it's been re-recorded, no one has ever tried to improve the lyrics. They all just sing what’s been sung before without considering how dumb the words are. I think it's time someone examined these lyrics more closely than Donny Osmond or Gonzo ever did.

According to the song, one of the reasons the holiday season is so wonderful is that “everyone’s telling you, ‘Be of good cheer.’” Have you ever been cheered up by someone telling you to cheer up? Of course not. If you want to make someone smile, you do something nice for them or trip down some icy stairs in front of them. Telling someone to “be of good cheer” raises that person’s happiness level about the same amount as telling them you're going to drown a pillowcase full of puppies if they don't smile. In either case, they're only smiling to get you to leave them alone and go away... and possibly to save some puppies, but not because you cheered them up.

Next on the list of bad lyrical choices... jingle-belling? Mistle-toeing? Is “wassailing” responsible for this slippery slope? Just because someone turned a Christmas noun into a verb for their song once doesn’t mean you have to do it multiple times in yours. The guy who wrote this song needs a solid candy-caning.

As for "marshmallows for toasting" and "scary ghost stories"... I guess every family’s entitled to their own Christmas traditions, but are you sure you’re thinking of the holiday season here? Because what you're describing is camping… or possibly Halloween. You may be thinking, "But A Christmas Carol is kind of a 'scary ghost story.'" All right, but the song refers to "scary ghost stories," so name the rest.

And speaking of "the rest," "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" was co-written by George Wyle, the guy who co-wrote the Gilligan’s Island theme song with Sherwood Schwartz. Originally that song ended with the words, "...and the rest, here on Gilligan's Isle." And the rest? They only needed to mention two other people. That's like saying the seven dwarfs are Doc, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, and the rest. They later replaced that phrase in their song with, "The Professor and Mary Ann." It just made more sense. So if you can change the poorly co-written lyrics in the Gilligan's Island theme song, then why not offer the same courtesy to a song that has somehow managed to become a Christmas classic?

I'd rewrite the lyrics myself, but I just wasted all of my time making fun of the old ones. Maybe next year.

Toy Story 3: The Video Game

Way back in June, Toy Story 3: The Video Game was finally released. I had been working on it for a couple of years, but even after all that time and work, I forgot to mention its release on my blog... until now. Here are six of the 1,800 storyboards I did during the game's production... and that's not just an exaggerated number either. I still have all of them. Clearly these boards aren't in sequence, and some of them were never used for anything, but I wanted to share them anyway... because these are a few that I actually toned. Ah, wonderful grayscale!

I'm very pleased with the way this game turned out... especially after watching my nieces and nephews become addicted to it. The "Toy Box" area is especially fun. That's where you just run around an old Western town as Woody, Buzz, or Jessie, doing whatever you feel like doing. If you want to shoot Bullseye with a rocket blaster for ten minutes straight, no one's stopping you... unless you're my nephew. After ten minutes I stopped him, because enough's enough! I also wrote a lot of the dialogue for the game, so if Hamm sometimes sounds like he's reading my blog to you, that's why.

I did these three drawings for a commercial that we made for Sony. They wanted a video that would highlight Zurg as a playable character in the Play Station 3 version of the game, and they left the rest of it up to us. I thought it would be funny to show Zurg having the time of his life, laughing it up like a crazy person, while Woody and Buzz watched in uncomfortable silence. In the final version, Zurg walks over and hugs the two of them. It works a lot better that way than it did in the boards, so three cheers to whoever added that part.So, Christmas shoppers, if your kids like Toy Story, I expect them to like this game. And if your kids don't like Toy Story, you should probably ask yourself where you've gone wrong as a parent.