"Tusk Envy"

About as close to a saccharine self-help sentiment as I get. Hence the meta-caption in the blog post title, which recontextualizes it on a level more to my thinking. I'm sure walrus (walruses? walri?) must have some serious insecurity issues with herd dominance and all that. And what's up with the Snuffleupagus mastadon? Maybe besides my cartoon style being aesthetically indebted during the (de)formative years to an artistic upbringing under the influence of Jim Henson's Muppets (along with Don Martin), I'm sure there's something to be said about the psychology of a young child aligning itself with that particular character.

One a serious note, here's a classic example of tweaking a panel after scanning the original pen + ink, as it needed some compositional breathing room between the visual elements, along with some judicious editing so as to somewhat temper the cloying Hallmark-card-caliber of the caption. What can I say, except in my defense I was surrounded by a pack of small, impressionable youngsters at the time of it's inception and also watching my every move while penciling it out for a classroom demo.