Harts Pass No. 376

While it's been hard for me to get excited about TOO much in the grand scheme of things this past year... I sill find relish and solace in a lot of little things a little closer to home. A fine line then regarding complacency and action but sometimes a little joy is necessary. Nearly a foot of snow in the last 24 hours is a good thing all around. At least in my book. Happy New Year!

Harts Pass No. 375 -- Happy Holidays!

So my family and I happily went to STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI on Monday afternoon in Wenatchee. As per usual I also had a comic due on Tuesday. So... something about wolverine kids wielding candy canes like light sabers - a marmot that vaguely resembles a porg - and definitely some commentary on this whole malarky about one holiday wish being somehow better than another. I mean give me a break. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Felice Navidad, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Yalda... the list goes on. The idea is that you warmly greet another human being with some potential respect for their own particular cultural heritage and also some greater appreciation that we are NOT all necessarily Christian or required to live by a certain set of religious traditions. And so the Star Wars theme of a determined resistance against imperial forces has also somehow made its way into my Christmas comic for 2017. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Harts Pass No. 374

It's true, I think, that the anticipation of a recipient opening their gift is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. And for the most part with this comic, I just really wanted to figure out a way to use that drawing of the "too big" hat pulled down over Kit's head :) Merry week before Christmas!

Harts Pass No. 373

PS While this comic is not exactly based on real life events, thrifty dad types who rarely visit the doctor's office BEWARE!

PPS And given the way that our country is being run of late, "crystal clear vision, but zero depth perception" might also carry weight as a political subtext...

Bear Witness Comics No. 5

If my Polar Bear Post Card Project was about optimism for something good -- the now more than ever critical plea for President Obama to have protected ANWR from oil exploration -- then the point of these Bear Witness strips is definitely to shed further light on things that are not. 

Sometimes my opinions might be one side of a perfectly healthy debate or a varied take on political opinion, but in certain other cases flat out WRONG things are happening -- and we need to hold voters and (even more so) self-interested politicians accountable. 

I've set up a separate website for these comics, so feel free share this as much as you'd like or to check in at www.bearwitnessscomics.com, but even though I'm primarily a children's book illustrator I also plan to post them here on my illustration site. 

Surely the political bent here is a little beyond the average primary or secondary elementary school student, but my intention here if nothing else is to use my art to express an opinion and to stand up for things that I believe in. Even those of you with differing political options have to appreciate and respect the value of that discourse in our society. 

We can do better. We need to do better. Back room political deals and partisan tax reform packages that affect the ENTIRE country but only benefit the few? I don't care if that the way that things are done. That is not the way to do this. GRRR!