"Half Calf" (aka Alaska Bearista)

This one was doodled out on site, but I neglected to take a reference photo, which, while on the one hand can severely limit your options when it comes to accurately depicting - or re-creating - a specific scenario, but on the other, can be creatively freeing, as you'll just have to make even more stuff up. And since it's a cartoon, that's obviously not anything to really worry about... excepting when it comes to maintaining that illusion of a three-dimensional xspace on a flat piece of paper.

And so when it came to rendering the haunch correctly, as in seating it properly upon the surface plane of the countertop and aligning the legs in a believable way, there was no end of frustration over getting them just right. This can be easily ascertained from just from the sheer number of attempts it took to dial in the damn drawing as evidenced by the dozen or so ghost images left behind by penciling & erasing of initial sketches over and over again.

I also took artistic liberties with enhancing pictorial depth by adding in the bagel case in the foreground. This was an example of my "visual sampling + remixing" approach of sketching in various items to arrange for a better (ie more effective depth) composition. 

Whew. Aside from all that, it's the best one of the year, in my humble opinion. It was actually drawn up at the end of 2023, and ran in print January of 2024. Which in turn means it'll lead off my next submission packet to the National Cartoonists Society's "Reuben" awards (note: Alaska's own Chad Carpenter won one in 2008). I've only done it twice now, the first back in 2011, and the entry process was cumbersome and confusing, but this past year was smooth and easy. But once again I didn't include what were the strongest (ie funniest + best drawn) panels because they were so hyper-regional, and wouldn't be understood by any non-resident. But this next year, I'm actually gonna lean into it, and stop the self-censoring, just be myself, I yam what I yam, and lead off the 2025 submission packet with this one.

PS/Update: I've mentioned it before elsewhere but I really mean it when I say yeah it's super cool to be in a gallery show (like this particular piece was for the 2024 UAF art department faculty exhibition) or a museum - but nothing beats seeing a funny out in the wild.

Cheers Mocha Dan's!