Uncle Feather from Judy Blume's "Superfudge"

The Mynah Bird from "Superfudge" shows how cosmopolitan he is.

Our younger son is supposed to read 2-6 chapter books out loud to an adult over the summer. 

We've been working our way through Judy Blume's "Superfudge" the sequel to "Tales of  a Fourth Grade Nothing"  reading on the subway train every morning on the way to camp.

Both books have quite a bit about pets, which as I may have mentioned, is a contentious topic around here.

In "Superfudge," the annoying younger brother, who previously distinguished himself by eating his older brother's pet turtle, gets a pet of his own, a talking Mynah bird. Uncle Feather has a sarcastic flair for word repetition and says hello in French. 

Sadly, Mynah birds are very hard to come by these days. I don't think they reproduce well in captivity. 

I'm not sure that a talking bird would fill the puppy shaped hole at our house anyway. 

Even if it spoke French.

Rowan and Slimer from "Ghostbusters 2016" with Strawberries for Lunch

We've clearly been seeing too many movies lately as I have been subjected to the latest "Ice Age" trailer three times now. Each viewing is made more unbearable by the knowledge that soon I will actually have to sit through the movie itself.

Albeit the antics of Ray Romano the wooly mammoth were pleasant compared to the totally over the top abusive trailer for the horror movie "Lights Out." It managed to be patently obvious and horribly terrifying at the same time. I dread dealing with the kids and their brand new fear of the dark at bedtime later tonight. I guess the people who paired that trailer with a 1pm Sunday show of "Ghostbusters" were thinking that there weren't going to be any kids in the audience? There were many who were considerably younger than mine.

"Ghostbusters" itself was, as my older son judged, "surprisingly not crappy." While not outrageously fantastic, it was pleasant to watch adult women being funny, and I would certainly rather watch it five times than sit through an "Ice Age" sequel once... Not that I will get to choose.

My sons didn't make the Chris Helmsworth is Thor connection until the credit sequence.

Snowball from "The Secret Life of Pets"

It seemed unlikely that we could miss seeing "The Secret Life of Pets" in a theater. But then, the kids had not wanted to see "Zootopia." Both movies feature cute bunny characters.

Of course the cute bunny in "The Secret Life of Pets" voiced by Kevin Hart is a loopy, over the top, homicidal criminal, while the "Zootopia" bunny is a mild mannered police officer. It is not hard to discern why our sons were more interested in "Pets"

After seeing the movie last weekend, my older son did offer the criticism that it would have been much improved if the crazy bunny had been able to swear. Perhaps the same could be said of Louis CK's character as well.

Bioshock Big Sister Skewers Strawberry

Bioshock continues to beckon.

I really thought I was going to manage two napkins last night.  My drawing of Princess Leia riding a Tyrannosaurus remains unfinished, however, due to the complexity of the leg buckles on this character.

Big Daddy from "Bioshock" Offers a Strawberry

An age-inappropriate video game character offers organic fruit for lunch:

Being allowed to play Bioshock is our older son's latest obsession.  It is rated M for "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Mild Sexual Themes, and Use of Alcohol and Tobacco." Thank goodness there is no gambling. 

According to its Wikipedia entry, it is also "one of the greatest video games of all time," and is a critique of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

I guess if I allow him to play it, we can discuss the dangers of laissez-faire capitalism afterwards.

The "Best Robin" From "Teen Titans Go!"

Who is your favorite Robin?...

Wait, What do you mean? You don't have a favorite Robin?

It is challenging enough to name all of the various Robins... Having raised two sons to 11 and 7, let's see if I can do it without recourse to Google:  Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne... Well, I just ran out of road.  With the help of Google, there is, of course, Stephanie Brown and Carrie Kelley. (Ironically, their names are displayed right above the "Homosexuality in the Batman Franchise" subject listing in Wikipedia.)

"'Of course?...Who are these people? And why should I care?" you might ask.

Thanks to their presently misspent youth, my sons could tell you. I'm not sure that I am capable of marshaling all the details myself without spending way too much time on this post.

Suffice it to say, there are a lot of named Robins, and then there are all of the various iterations of each with their various costumes and hairstyles.  Last night's episode of "Teen Titan Go!" was titled "The Best Robin," and featured the show's resident Robin inviting his other incarnations in to show his lazy teammates how to do the superhero thing correctly.

The kids were watching the show at 6 pm on a school night instead of doing their homework mostly because I was busy trying to figure out a way to make sauteed mushrooms and kale appealing for a second grader's palate. Which is to say that I did not attend to the plot of the episode.  One can only imagine the sort of existential pop culture crisis that multiple iterations of oneself might touch off. 

My younger son's response to the episode, however, was pretty straightforward: There was no question which Robin was superior.  He was the guy with no exposed skin, but with spiky hair, and an attitude. 

As it turned out, the strawberries I was planning to put in the lunch today were moldy, and given Robin's unfriendly expression on the napkin, he should probably be holding one of those uneaten sauteed mushrooms.

(In the unlikely event that you want to see a clip from the episode)

Or to see some of the 40 other napkin posts regarding Robin in his many forms

The Zombie Horde Brings Fruit and Vegetables

...and one turkey sandwich.

The kids always love a "zombie episode" of any TV show.  They have yet to see an actual zombie apocalypse movie, but are somehow familiar with all of the conventions of the genre and delight in seeing them applied to a sitcom.

This napkin has been laying around the house in varying stages of incompletion since the tosillectomy. Besides having made the mistake of choosing an excessively complex subject matter, I realized early on that I wasn't going to be able to keep it from becoming too creepy and too green.

One cannot stray far from the "Plants vs Zombies" style cute and cartoony treatment of the undead without them looking too scary....or too much like the jolly green giant.

(Those orange things are supposed to be carrot sticks, by the way.
And maybe this is a "Zombie Salad" - title thanks to Frank Baker via Facebook)

Silas and Miss Lupescu from "The Graveyard Book" Offer Lunch

The graphic novel version of Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book," adapted by P. Craig Russell, was obviously appealing for my macabre minded sons.

They were, however,  immediately annoyed that I had not procured Book 2 yet.  (It will be released in a few days)

The story centers on Nobody Owens, a toddler whose entire family has been murdered and is then protected and raised by the inhabitants of an old graveyard. Since ghosts aren't ably to shop for groceries, he has the additional guardians Silas the vampire, and Miss Lupescu, a werewolf. 

Ansel really like the characters- and the idea of being raised by a vampire- but was not impressed with my drawing.

Griever from "The Maze Runner"

Not Too Creepy for School... apparently.

Months ago, Ansel had insisted that I promise that we would see "The Maze Runner" as soon as it was released. Having slogged through the book in preparation, I was a bit concerned that seeing the movie in a theater would be too scary even for our "Sharknado" loving seven year old.  His older brother, while of course already an authority on the plot of the story, opted out.  Archer loves aliens and monsters, he prefers those with weapons and technical gear, or at least those who can be dispatched with a proton torpedo. While viewing "After Earth" a couple of years ago, we discovered that he is really very much not fond of watching multi-legged cgi monsters picking on unarmed protagonists. And I prefer that he be able to go to the bathroom at night without feeling that he has to run.

Any concerns I had about excessive scariness going in to "The Maze Runner" were reinforced during the previews which included a trailer for "Annabelle." This prequel to "The Conjuring" appears to be a shameless creep fest full of gotcha moments featuring the scary doll, an endangered baby,  a running nightgown clad demon, and the horror standard of the screaming woman being jerked off screen by unseen forces. By the end of that preview,  my child, who often thinks himself too mature to hold my hand in public, was out of his own seat and huddled in my lap.

The preview proved to be the more frightening moment of the afternoon, however.  Ansel toughed out the many scary scenes with the spidery bio-mechanical Grievers without too much cowering.  He was clearly pleased with himself afterwards, and went home to build Grievers out of LEGOs and cheerfully berate his brother for wimping out.

My rendition of the Griever is more silly than scary, which seemed fine given a classroom of seven year olds. 

Rock Monster with Baby from LEGO's "Clutch Powers"

Ansel is quite fond of the first feature length LEGO movie from long ago in 2010, but viewing it again does make the more recent "LEGO Movie" look much better by comparison.

The strawberry does not appear in the movie.

Here's a link to a really old Clutch Powers' image featuring the destruction of broccoli.

Deadpool Slices a Strawberry

Wade Wilson delivers some fruit justice, but is seriously upstaged by a giant strawberry.

Of course my sons like Deadpool.  He's a sarcastic, inappropriate anti-hero, who-thanks to his "healing factor''-survives being constantly shot, disemboweled, and decapitated. And he has a lot of weapons.

Needless to say, Mr Wilson and lunch at a Quaker school don't mix well, so his napkin appearances have been limited.  I am guessing that most of the lower school teachers haven't read "Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe" (and for the record, neither have my sons) so perhaps they would not appreciate just how unQuaker he is.

And it is August, so this napkin is just for the "bank"-( the stack of napkins that sits on the microwave as possible replacements on those school mornings when whatever I've drawn the night proves to be too uncool for school) so it's not going anywhere right away.

I gave Deadpool's sword the strawberry pacification treatment...probably because I knew I was going to enjoy drawing the fruit more than Deadpool himself.  Can you tell?  You can see the disturbing number of napkins featuring strawberries stuck on various weapons at this link.

Untickled Slow Loris With Strawberry

No endangered species were harmed...or tickled...during the drawing of this napkin.

(Archer is on a field trip today and took a packed lunch with a napkin for the second time this school year.)

Last night at bedtime...or let's be honest, it was a bit after official bedtime... Archer suddenly HAD to show us something important online.  After several unsuccessful spelling attempts, he finally managed to pull up images of the Slow Loris.  Apparently, this is one of those internet memes.  There are many images and videos of Lorises being adorable and behaving like pets... and apparently enjoying being tickled by humans.

Because few instances of internet cuteness can exist without a tail of guilt and awfulness:
When I looked up Slow Lorises after Archer went to bed to draw a picture for him, I discovered that, unsurprisingly, Lorises should not be pets.  They are an already endangered species and need to be left in the wild.  They are also nocturnal and extremely photo phobic, so their slow, amiable and pet-like behavior is purely because they are blinded and overwhelmed.  They are poisonous (the only poisonous mammal!) and most of the pet Lorises have supposedly had their teeth pulled out with pliers.  And lastly, the Lorises who are apparently enjoying being tickled in the popular videos are actually being tortured and we are misinterpreting their response. 

It's possible that all of the above information is just part of a killjoy environmentalist plot to rob people of the innocent pleasure of watching Lorises enjoying being tickled.  I cannot vouch for the sources.

But we won't be tickling any Lorises just to be safe.

Tsul Kalu From Secret Saturdays With Fruit

Ansel was reminded recently how much he liked the "Secret Saturdays."

This character appears in a couple of episodes in the third and final season of the show. 

I substituted a strawberry for his sword to make the image more peaceful for lunch.

Assassin's Creed Connor Confronts Batman

This is another image from a year ago that I somehow never managed to post... I think.
At the time, we were right in the middle of the Assassin's Creed IV obsession around here.  And at the tail end of the Batman obsession.  Although, like Star Wars, Batman is never completely out of fashion.  Assassin's Creed is never out of fashion, for that matter.  But I am not drawing Connor on napkins several times a week at present.

I usually added strawberries on the end of weapons to make them more friendly for Quaker lunch, but here I guess the strawberry is the point of contention.  Or maybe they're just having a moment.

Fluffy Shares Strawberries with Cyclops

Ansel was very impressed with George O'Connor's interpretation of the Cyclopes.  (And here we are talking about the sons of Uranus and Gaia, the brothers of the Titans, and not Polyphemus, the sort of one eyed guy who appears in recent and not so recent movies.  And the plural of Cyclops is Cyclopes...just don't want you to think that I can't use Wikipedia)

Based on my five minute perusal of the Google image results for "cyclops," I can observe that it seems to have always been a challenge to figure out how to locate that one eye in the context of the human face.  It definitely does not work well with a nose or eyebrows.  I think Mr. O'Connor's solution of turning the whole head into an eye- and removing the neck as well- is a very elegant answer to the age old Cyclops design problem.

...And they have claws, and what 7 year old boy does not love a thing with claws?  There were strawberries packed in the lunch, so I thought perhaps we should put the claws to good use.

I included Fluffy because it seems that no napkin is not improved by the addition of a hamster. 

Bad Island Mo Mos Bring Lunch

While we were finishing rereading Doug TenNapel's "Bad Island" last night, Ansel requested these unfriendly little aliens on his napkin for today.

In the graphic novel, they are determined to force the parents of a human family into a lake of acid.  But I thought maybe we should put their sharp sticks to a more positive use here on the napkin. 

Or maybe they are looking to malevolently torment the napkin recipient with a healthy lunch of whole grain pasta and a fruit and a vegetable.  Our kids are usually happier to have a bagel for lunch....  Just a bagel.

Despicable Me 2 Minions

The kids really wanted to see the new Despicable Me movie over the weekend.
Unfotunately, it does not open until Wednesday.

They find the minions hysterically funny.  My feelings are mixed.

Gizmo From Gremlins and Red Panda

Trying to avoid "Scooby Doo" reruns, we watched "Gremlins" over the weekend.

I think I must have seen the movie as a a seventeen year old back in 1984, and wasn't sure how appropriate it was going to be for my much younger than 17 year old  kids.  Like many other special effect driven movies from the eighties, it was much less scary than I remembered.  Although I suspect that viewing such a movie at home on a TV on Saturday morning with your mother there to prep you on what is coming up and reassure you that the main character is going to make it out intact makes almost any scary movie much less frightening.

(Note to my older son:  This does not mean that we will be watching anything from the "Alien" franchise any time soon)

My sons loved the graphic puppet violence.  Remember how the mother dispatches the gremlins in the kitchen in a motorized mixing bowl and the microwave?  I didn't.  Ansel was mostly concerned about Gizmo's welfare, he was not much moved by the plight of the human characters.  And Phoebe Cate's story about Santa Dad dead in the chimney?  Barely registered with my kids.

I'm not really sure what's going on with the red panda on today's napkin.  I may have to reinstate the one character per napkin rule during summer camp while I am doing two napkins a night.  Ansel wanted me to include a motorized Guinea Pig also, but I think I got into enough trouble with just the two and the strawberry.

Archer The Gorgonite From Small Soldiers

We stumbled across "Small Soldiers" on television over the weekend.  I vaguely recall seeing it when it was released in 1998. 

Despite not having a small boy in my life at the time, I imagine that I went to see it because I had been sculpting doll and action figure parts for the toy industry and was also using them in my own work.  At the time, I found the movie, to be, shall we say, lacking in gender sensitivity and political correctness.  (It does have a rather remarkable voice cast for the toys, including many of the actors from "The Dirty Dozen" and "This is Spinal Tap.")

Of course, the stereotyped bad behavior of macho action figures is exactly what appealed to my sons.  At least they did immediately side with the oppressed Gorgonites over the sadistic human commandos. 

And the Gorgonite leader is named Archer, so that is really all one needs to know to explain Ansel's interest in the character.

Ansel was very unhappy with my first picture of him with Archer the Gorgonite.  I humored him and came up with one of Archer alone holding lunch items.

Mai From Avatar: the Last Airbender Throws Food

I wondered why Ansel requested Mai, Prince Zuko's love interest from the series, as he rarely asks for solo female characters. 

I've seen very little of the show myself as Ansel has watched most of the Avatar episodes on the iPod while riding to therapy in the cargo bike.

When I did a little research on her last night, I discovered she is known for throwing knives, and I suddenly understood his interest.

Today she is throwing more peaceful lunch items.