"Fir Baby" (aka "His Name was Douglas")

At first the caption said “His name was Doug.” But nobody understood it, so then I changed it by expanding it to his full name, “Douglas.” Now more people will get it. Just kidding, it’s another hyper-regional reference that only True Alaskans®™ will know anything about, with a big chunk of the Venn diagram overlapping the huge arboreal scientists demographic. There were a few guffaws after reading the main gag component, so the attempted two-fer isn’t actually necessary. But hey, “A right!” “Then a left!.” Though sure enough it was pointed out to me that there weren’t any fir trees up in our neck of the woods. There are however non-native Balsam, Siberian and Subalpine firs. So the print version had the bonus caption gag deleted.

By the way, the picture isn’t posed, MoochieBear, a poseur nonetheless, really did sack out in his usual spot sprawled halfway out his cubicle that sits in-between the drawing board and the computer desktop section. It goes without saying it goes very, very difficult to maintain discipline and focus in the face of such overwhelming peer pressure (“paw?” “purr?”). Anyways the YouTube algorithm will no doubt ban it on account of the accidental/incidental background music - as of late I’ve been blasting an INXS mix in the studio, and the song “Burn For You” can faintly be heard in the background of the classroom. So I am awaiting appeal. Michael Hutchence has been on my mind a lot as of late, following an emotional introspection of a similarly-themed Chris Cornell (another charismatic and spellbinding frontsman whose song “Seasons” will be featured in a new comics-poem uploading here on May 3rd. 

Update: And just what I feared came to pass with tripping an automatic flagging, which is under appeal: "I am a professor of art at the University of Fairbanks Alaska and the video is of a technique I teach in my Cartoon & Comic Art and Pen & Ink studio art courses using a stick to create black spruce trees when published in my weekly cartoon. The incidental background is less than 60-seconds of music playing in my classroom during this demonstration. This educational short is entirely afforded copyright exemption under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution under the fair use provision as it is an educational video.” We’ll see if they rule in my favor – I’ll know in thirty days, but in the meantime.... 

 Also as a bonus to Ink & Snow readers, here's a one-minute video of how I ink my spruce trees using, appropriately enough, a stick. More info in the video description: