Do you NOT consider saving your mom from having to wear her fingers to the bone deep into the night at her advanced age 'in your best interest'??

#1571; Of Integrity and Youth (Part 2)

  — July 22nd, 2025

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1571/

[ Comment thread on Discord ]

Buy a Print

The Duck that Saved Hanukkah

In case you missed it last year, I wrote a comic in which a character posits the existence of the “Hanukkah duck,” (or here on Tumblr), who quacks you a puzzle, as a way of filling out the canon of Hanukkah traditions relative to Christmas.

I feel it is my civic duty to remind you that soon after that comic was posted, readers Keith Ammann and Cantor Yakov Hadash wrote and performed a Yiddish song about said Hanukkah Duck.

Die Katschke Chaneke / The Chanukah Duck

this is why my job is the best job

ALSO: Holiday cards are now on sale. Two new designs will be revealed later this week. 2014 Calendars will be announced later this week as well.

ALSO ALSO: I will be in Austin, Texas this coming weekend!

This fan made a lamp out of comic strips!

Reader McKenna M. sent me these pictures of the lamp she made out of printed-out Wondermark comic strips!

She writes, “I have enjoyed your comics for years, and a few years ago when I was outfitting my college apartment, I picked some of my favorite comics and turned them into a lamp…So I just wanted to let you know that I’ve always found your work very illuminating ;)”

This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen! What a…BRIGHT IDEA

Thanks, McKenna!

BEHIND THE SCENES of the Real True Actual Stories

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Real True Actual Stories of America videos! I wrote that introductory sentence and then realized it was NEARLY IDENTICAL to the one I wrote LAST POST but I’m just gonna leave it there because THE SENTIMENT STANDS.

I wrote a blog post for Audible that goes BEHIND THE SCENES of how we made them a little:

To bring characters from Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America 1927 to life in a series of six videos, we merged traditional hand puppetry with motion-capture techniques to create a unique form of animation. Wait -— did we create it? Or did we independently invent a technique that smarter people than us have perfected years ago and are now yawning about? I don’t know and thankfully I don’t care.

BEHIND THE SCENES VIDEO:

The ‘Real True Actual Stories’ videos are animated, but it only ends up as animation via the long way round. The original performance for every character is performed by an actor, using a clothespins-and-rubber-bands-controlled hand puppet with a face drawn on it. I first made a bunch of these very simple puppets a few years ago, for a series of video experiments that were basically just an excuse to talk in funny voices all day long.

The more complex the videos became, the more we began to butt up against the physical limitations of building puppets, props, and sets. We wanted to spend time performing, not laboriously cutting out paper. So I decided to turn to my film editing expertise (from my prior career, before I started making comics), and came up with a way to merge the worlds of live performance with digital design…

The full post is here!

‘Real True Actual Stories’ OUTTAKES feat. Kris Straub

I hope you’ve enjoyed watching the Real True Actual Stories of America animations! If you missed them, I posted them here and here and here.

Originally, before we went the final direction that we did, the pieces were called “Gutzon Borglum and Friends”, and I wanted my pal Kris Straub to narrate them. We went so far as to record a back-and-forth with the (ostensible) star of the videos, Gutzon Borglum.

Since we ultimately changed the direction, this footage became UNUSABLE OUTTAKES, but I still like it! CHECK IT OUT.

LAST TWO: Real True Actual Stories of America

Here are Episodes Five and Six of my animated series ‘Real True Actual Stories of America’, sponsored by Audible.co.uk and Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America 1927.

Episode Five features volatile newspaper magnate and obscure cult leader Bernarr Macfadden! WARNING: Might be saucy; viewer discretion is advised.

Episode Six features America’s most memorable hero of all time, Gutzon Borglum!

VOICES: Jeff Feazell as Bernarr Macfadden! Nikki Rice Malki as his nanny! Narrated by Matt Hopper! And Gutzon Borglum was played by himself.

PREVIOUS EPISODES: ONE AND TWO / THREE AND FOUR


Recent blog posts