Creative Commons license icon

kudu

An African Tale (Tail?) with a Very Long Name

Your humble In-Fur-Nation crew is back from a quick trip to WonderCon, which this year happened to be in our back yard. Lots of cool new stuff to talk about, which we’ll get started on right away. First up: Samuel E. Kirkman Jr. is an illustrator and independent comic artist whose on-line opus comes with one dilly of a name: Ouwangalaymah. Whew, try that one fast. Also known as The “Tail” of the Name of the Tree, here’s the description from The Illustrated Section: “The tale begins as everyone forgets, the name of the tree that is. Yofti, a hyperactive ringtail, along with the tortoise, an orphaned wildebeest calf adopted by a pair of dik diks and a rather arrogant kudu become central characters as the story begins to unfold. Using an ancient Bantu folk tale for the ark of the story, the author spins a yarn of classic underdog-dom. Leaping lemurs, a lazy lion, and one tenacious tortoise help highlight the need to perceive in spite of ones own limitations.” The first few sections of the comic are available as downloads for purchase right now.