WELCOME TO MY BLOG

“Reading” Days. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on December 5, 2007. Prior to finals week, the school gave us a few (class-)free days called “reading days.” They were intended to be used for study and review sessions, but also happened to be the time when all end-of-semester social events were scheduled. Hats off to those who were able to spend their reading days wisely and avoid the inevitable cramming scenario! This is a scan of the original dra

Make Your Pavlov Proud. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on November 29, 2007. I’ve talked about the whole course evaluation process here already, but an added twist to the story is that some professors brought cookies and cupcakes on the last day of classes right before handing out the evaluation forms to students. Sure, the treats were intended to help celebrate the end of each semester, but they couldn’t have hurt the profs in the ratings, eithe

Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on November 15, 2007. Eating disorders were so prevalent across college campuses that I heard two crazy stories that didn’t surprise me at all: One girl confided that her roommate’s diet strategy included padlocking their fridge with a pig-shaped combination lock that cried out “OINK OINK! OINK OINK!” before opening up… at which point anyone who opened the fridge was more likely to lock it back u

Same Ol’, Same Ol’ (Censored). Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on November 8, 2007. There’s a saying that history is a cycle, and I tend to agree. I drew this “then and now” cartoon after observing some very familiar headlines in the news. Two notes: 1) As one reader pointed out online, I left out the second “A” in “Bear Stearns.” Given that the company doesn’t exist anymore, not sure how many people would be able to spot this today… 2) Out of respect to the p

What Not to Wear. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on October 25, 2007. Penn President Amy Gutmann’s annual Halloween party made headlines in 2006 after she posed with a student dressed as a suicide bomber… People were upset at what they perceived as her endorsement of the costume. For the record, she said his costume didn’t register and she thought he was dressed as Rambo. The damage was done, though. A year later, I suspected that admission to th

APAHW 2007. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian supplement for Asian Pacific American Heritage Week (September 2007). When the organizers of Asian Pacific American Heritage Week (APAHW) asked me to do a cartoon for their supplement in the Daily Pennsylvanian, I jumped at the chance. Apart from having been on the planning committee in previous years, I’d always been fascinated by the exploration of culture, identity, and immigration (including self-seg

Holland Homage. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on October 18, 2007. Fashion designer Henry Holland rose to fame with his 80-style graphic tees and campaigns featuring his muse, Agyness Deyn (the “It” model at the time). The t-shirts featured celebrity names and rhyming taglines (e.g., “Do me in the park, Marc [Jacobs]” or “I’ll tell you who’s boss, Kate Moss”) and quickly spawned several copycats. Some of these “tributes” to Holland were featured

Breaking the Fall. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on October 11, 2007. Just like my spring break doodle from the year before, this one is pretty self-explanatory. Penn was one of the few schools that had fall break in addition to Thanksgiving break, but it wasn’t really much of a break once you factored in all the homework that most professors assigned over the long weekend. This is a scan of the drawing as it appeared in the DP. More about my st

Major Major. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on October 4, 2007. The university’s Division of Facilities Services handled all requests for repairs and maintenance from students living in the college housing system. Requests could be reported over the Internet or over the phone (for emergencies), and then prioritized and treated according to severity. Incidents considered “major” included plumbing issues, non-functioning toilets, and sparking elect

Blasé Tuesday. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on September 27, 2007. I’ve said a lot about this topic here already. To be fair to the school, alums who graduated a decade ago frequently told me to that I didn’t know how good we had it. (“Back when I was there, you could hear bullets flying around the area!”) Before I was graduated, someone also told me that if you looked at a heat map of crime in the West Philly area, Penn was like a little bubbl

RiP, Chivalry. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on September 20, 2007. The first iPhone was unveiled in the summer of 2007. I was interning in New York at the time, and still remember the commotion at the Apple flagship store there as people lined up around the block to get their hands on Steve Jobs’ latest brainchild. (The entire launch got a truckload of press, and the media actively reported on the celeb sightings: which ones sent their personal

Insomnia. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on September 13, 2007. These sites are the biggest time sink on earth. ‘Nuff said. This is a scan of the original drawing prior to publication. More about my stint at the DP here. #Penn #YouTube #insomnia #Facebook #PerezHilton #Philly #college #CollegeHumor

Class-Shopping. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on September 6, 2007. Choosing classes felt a lot like shopping — students were presented with endless options (leafing through the course catalogue at the beginning of each semester was fun), inventory for each option was limited (slots filled up quickly!), and there was a pretty fair return policy (during the add-drop window, you could “try” classes out and then drop them without consequences, i.e.

How to Spot a Freshman. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on August 30, 2007. This back-to-school piece was one of the most fun to draw. Like “Crime Fighting, Penn-Style,” the quadrant format was more time-consuming to fill, but ultimately rewarding for me once I’d finished. The only thing that needs explanation here is the last square, but apparently Wikipedia has the answer to everything… I’m just glad that I didn’t have to draw the remedy for cro

Evolution. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian graduation issue (May 2007). When the DP editors asked me to draw a cartoon for their one-shot graduation issue that spring, inspiration came from one of my brother’s SFU college shirts. The shirt showed an engineering major from UBC, their rival school, morphing into an SFU engineer (homo erectus). Darwinian theory is also an inside joke in our family, as my dad tells anyone who points out the absolute l

Who Ya Gonna Call. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on April 19, 2007. Hey Day was an annual rite of passage to mark the “moving up” of the junior class to senior-hood. Every spring, the juniors would march down Locust Walk brandishing canes while sporting red T-shirts and fake straw hats. Over time, it morphed into what one blogger called a “one-way food fight,” with the outgoing senior class pelting the juniors with flour, condiments, chocolate s

Forty Winks. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on April 12, 2007. Again, a pretty straightforward doodle. Our school’s Office of Health Education made best efforts to promote public health through workshops, studies,  events, and awareness campaigns. Mission accomplished — it was impossible to turn a corridor without running into one of OHE’s bright yellow “Ask Us Why” posters (stressing the importance of a full night’s sleep, among other things). I

Spring Fling Throwback. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on April 5, 2007. Two eagerly anticipated announcements come springtime: 1) Who is the commencement speaker? 2) Who’s performing at Fling? Since graduation only really concerned a fourth of us, the latter was arguably of more interest to the entire student body every year. The choice of musical performer to headline the annual Spring Fling concert was often hotly contested, with people comp

Tourism vs. Reality. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on March 29, 2007. I loved spending time drawing in the studios of Charles Addams Hall. It was a great place to be “in the zone,” clear your mind, and just create — that is, until I spotted a rat running around the room as I drew one night. (This was three months before Pixar released Ratatouille… so no jokes about rats as misunderstood artists came to mind.) I did most of my art homework in the

The Real March Madness. Pen and ink. Originally published in the Daily Pennsylvanian on March 22, 2007. Shepherd vs. Sloan? The hair… or that towel? Yes, this was topical in 2007. Like The OC two years prior, Grey’s Anatomy in its prime was one of those cultural phenoms best watched in a group. Guilty pleasure plot lines aside, I applauded the equal-opportunity casting and enjoyed learning about bizarre but true medical cases. Before the plot became too implausible to follow,